Your Kindle is Making You Stupid? Study Says E-Readers May Be Missing Out – Forbes

A Norwegian study has found That readers who use a Kindle are “Significantly” worse Than Their paperback-wielding counterparts at recalling key events in text, accor ding to Britain’s The Guardian .

Paperback Reader

The study gift 50 people copies of the same mystery story, half in and half classic paperback format on Amazon’s electronic tablet, Kindle. After reading, subjects were tested on different aspects of the story-including objects, characters, and setting. While the results in many categories yielded ie the comparable results, Kindle readers received Significantly lower scores on Questions Concerning the timing of events in the story – ie putting events A, B, and C in chronological order. Only two out of the fifty people Studied identified as regular Kindle users.

If failing to recall the order of events in a piece of fiction seems benign, the study still raises significant concerns worldwide. Text is only valuable if a person can derive meaning from it; When reading, comprehension is king.

Learning to understand and digest a piece of writing is even more important for younger students, as Their reading habits are still forming. In some classrooms, Kindles, tablets, and other electronic devices have been used as replacements for textbooks, as administrators look to capture the fleeting attention span youth. Will this switch serve to Further erode the attention span and reading comprehension skills of students already weaned on tech-heavy lifestyles?

This issue extends beyond the ivory tower, as academia and literature are not the only aspects of our lives That May Be suffering from an influx of screen-centric innovation. According to a New York Magazine reporter, an increase increasing number of couples are breaking up due to one partner’s “obsession” with online pornography. Dale Latch, a paralegal quoted in the study, cited pornography’s Increased convenience as the main factor in crumbling relationships.

With paperback sales declining, book stores around the world closing, and libraries in danger of extinction, do physical books even stand a chance? According to studies like the one from Norway’s Stavanger University, we May Be in need of a paperback renaissance. Still, with Apple, Samsung, Amazon, and Microsoft all serious players in the tablet game, adoption of the tablets and other e-devices continues to rise. Will the influx of tablets have Further impact on reading comprehension skills?