{"id":30255,"date":"2013-02-20T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T19:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?p=30255"},"modified":"2013-02-20T07:49:10","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T14:49:10","slug":"do-physical-books-still-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Physical Books Still Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a physical book nerd from the start. Ever since I was young, I\u2019ve always wanted a library of books to own so that I can show them off, grab a book, give it a sniff, and put it back. But with the rise of e-books as an extremely viable model of reading, it\u2019s created a debate amongst readers and publishers as to whether e-books are the \u201cDeath of the book\u201d<\/a>\u00a0or are just another method of reading<\/a>\u00a0which won\u2019t impact one\u2019s reading of physical books.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been following the debate from day one, and I understand both sides\u2019 arguments. Digital books have little physical cost, and the same information (and, in some cases, possibly more<\/a>). However, you use the long-term value of the physical book, that beauty which comes from having books on a shelf for others to look at, to feel and to sell and re-sell.<\/p>\n

But these are all subjective answers. One person may just want a cheap book while another wants the physical book, regardless of cost.<\/p>\n

But what if there was actually something more to this conversation? In my arguing with many on both sides, I\u2019ve found a few arguments towards the physical which basically claim that if one wants to engage and remember a text better\u2014such as in the case of non-fiction educational material or classical material\u2014a physical book increases the chances of this happening to statistically notable levels.<\/p>\n

Sadly, I haven\u2019t found any actual studies which show this shift directly. Some studies<\/a> have shown that reading on the Kindle is slower than reading in a book.<\/p>\n

Now, these ideas were prevalent in the early \u201980s and \u201990s, when there was a clear exploration of the physical\/digital realm in order to make sure everything was accurate. Plus, we were still trying to understand the difference between a screen and a page, and how that affects our eyes and minds. More recent studies have complicated this early idea, making it appear as if there might not be a difference, especially with the reader-friendly screens of Amazon\u2019s Kindle.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the verdict? That\u2019s tricky, but I found a psychologist who explained the comparison and contrasts in a fairly effective manner. According to\u00a0this\u00a0Time Healthland<\/em> article<\/a>, psychologist Kate Garland found that there were a few contrasts between those who read e-books and those who read physical books:<\/p>\n

First, more repetition was required with computer reading to impart the same information.<\/p>\n

Second, the book readers seemed to digest the material more fully. Garland explains that when you recall something, you either \u201cknow\u201d it and it just \u201ccomes to you\u201d \u2014 without necessarily consciously recalling the context in which you learned it \u2014 or you \u201cremember\u201d it by cuing yourself about that context and then arriving at the answer. \u201cKnowing\u201d is better because you can recall the important facts faster and seemingly effortlessly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found was that people on paper started to \u2018know\u2019 the material more quickly over the passage of time,\u201d says Garland. \u201cIt took longer and [required] more repeated testing to get into that knowing state [with the computer reading, but] eventually the people who did it on the computer caught up with the people who [were reading] on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Context and landmarks may actually be important to going from \u201cremembering\u201d to \u201cknowing.\u201d The more associations a particular memory can trigger, the more easily it tends to be recalled. Consequently, seemingly irrelevant factors like remembering whether you read something at the top or the bottom of page \u2014 or whether it was on the right or left hand side of a two-page spread or near a graphic \u2014 can help cement material in mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These simple psychological triggers have turned out to be essential to our reading, and really affect how we comprehend certain texts. It shows that when one wants to read a text in a meaningful matter, there are benefits to choosing a physical text over a digital one.<\/p>\n

As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.\u00a0So, when I want to read A Dance of Dragons<\/em>, I\u2019m open to choosing the Kindle option. But when I want to dig deep into Lewis or Keller, I\u2019ll pick up a physical book.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1336,"featured_media":28752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1484,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature","category-ofthemoment","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nDo Physical Books Still Matter?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Physical Books Still Matter?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ and Pop Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-02-20T19:00:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-02-20T14:49:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/280\/2013\/01\/open-book.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Christopher Hutton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christopher Hutton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/\",\"name\":\"Do Physical Books Still Matter?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-02-20T19:00:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-02-20T14:49:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/47fe564231ae683721e9aeb4146162f9\"},\"description\":\"As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Do Physical Books Still Matter?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/\",\"name\":\"Christ and Pop Culture\",\"description\":\"Where the Christian faith meets the common knowledge of our age\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/47fe564231ae683721e9aeb4146162f9\",\"name\":\"Christopher Hutton\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b034b35896573e3027c36a9cded73020?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b034b35896573e3027c36a9cded73020?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Christopher Hutton\"},\"description\":\"Chris Hutton is a college student and Freelance Writer from Bloomington Minnesota. Since he was young, he loved books and ideas. Science was one of his favorite topics, as well as technology. It's one of the issues that has mattered to him consistently. Hence, Chris tries to bring a critical\/helpful take to the modern understanding of technology. You can find Chris' home online at liter8.net, or you can tweet him via @liter8media.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/liter8.net\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/author\/chutton\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Do Physical Books Still Matter?","description":"As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Do Physical Books Still Matter?","og_description":"As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/","og_site_name":"Christ and Pop Culture","article_published_time":"2013-02-20T19:00:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-02-20T14:49:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":"600","height":"300","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/280\/2013\/01\/open-book.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Christopher Hutton","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Christopher Hutton","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/","name":"Do Physical Books Still Matter?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-02-20T19:00:53+00:00","dateModified":"2013-02-20T14:49:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/47fe564231ae683721e9aeb4146162f9"},"description":"As Christians and thinkers, we need to consider the format of our reading in context with our desired result for that reading.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/do-physical-books-still-matter\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Do Physical Books Still Matter?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/","name":"Christ and Pop Culture","description":"Where the Christian faith meets the common knowledge of our age","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/47fe564231ae683721e9aeb4146162f9","name":"Christopher Hutton","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b034b35896573e3027c36a9cded73020?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b034b35896573e3027c36a9cded73020?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Christopher Hutton"},"description":"Chris Hutton is a college student and Freelance Writer from Bloomington Minnesota. Since he was young, he loved books and ideas. Science was one of his favorite topics, as well as technology. It's one of the issues that has mattered to him consistently. Hence, Chris tries to bring a critical\/helpful take to the modern understanding of technology. You can find Chris' home online at liter8.net, or you can tweet him via @liter8media.","sameAs":["http:\/\/liter8.net"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/author\/chutton\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}