All I can say

This is about what you would expect from the academic establishment.

In July, Anne Mangen of Stravanger University in Norway published, along with her research team, a study of people reading a fictional story from a paperback book and from a kindle.  Her results were that the group using paperback books remembered less about sequence of plot than the people using Kindles.  She performed a similar experiment last year with 10th graders who read from an iPad and from a .pdf document.  The .pdf readers scored higher on a test.

Manger was at least a true scholar in offering conclusions by saying the studies "suggest" that paper or the imitation of paper, in the study using .pdf documents, help people perform better on tests and provide a better mental framework for remembering sequence in particular.

This is an attempt to try to reverse what is happening in reality.  Manger acknowledges that other studies show a tremendous decline in the number of people reading books.  She is trying to stem the tide of this trend.

It's not going to happen!

Here's reality.  The new world requires interactivity.  Reality is not answering questions on a test.  It's interacting with your environment as you learn.  Disney learned this several years ago.  They launched ABCmouse.com and have young children ages 2-5 learning on an iPad all kinds of things because they interact with the tablet.  Learning is not compartmentalized, i.e. read something first, then write answers over what is read.  Children in STEM schools know this too.  Project based learning allows the brain to more lastingly learn (to form synapses along dendrites for long term organization and storage, to use technical jargon) even if the amount of time to "learn" or register understanding takes longer.  Learning is integrated into projects and interactive with the environment.

A study like Menger's also ignores what has recently occurred and what is about to occur.  The Apple watch is just the beginning of something huge.  Icons and apps on your wrist to give you real time interaction in a format handier than your cell phone, quicker than your cell phone, and with improved Siri speaking your results to you will make both books and Kindles archaic almost immediately.  The next wave of technology using 3D holographic information delivery will seal the coffins for paperbacks and Kindles alike.  After that comes artificial intelligence.  At that time, nothing resembling paperbacks will be the way to learn information or enjoy a story.

I knew the academic world would have a contingency of die-hards wanting to stem the tide to a world that is a quantum leap from the world they lived in most of their lives.




All I can say is, "Prepare your coffins."