Table Of ContentHirohito Shibata
Kengo Omura
Why Digital
Displays
Cannot
Replace Paper
The Cognitive Science of Media
for Reading and Writing
Why Digital Displays Cannot Replace Paper
(cid:129)
Hirohito Shibata Kengo Omura
Why Digital Displays Cannot
Replace Paper
The Cognitive Science of Media for Reading
and Writing
HirohitoShibata KengoOmura
FucultyofSocialInformation FujiXeroxCo.,Ltd.
GunmaUniversity Yokohama,Kanagawa,Japan
Maebashi,Gunma,Japan
ISBN978-981-15-9475-5 ISBN978-981-15-9476-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9476-2
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Foreword
Will screens ever replace paper in the workplace, in schools and institutions of
higherlearning,orforleisurereading?Morethantwentyyearsago,thefirstpurpose-
built e-book readers were introduced to a skeptical marketplace. The early devices
were heavy, hard to hold, had limited battery life and poor screen resolution, and
were subject to unwelcome new phenomena like glare and inflexible digital rights
management.Publishersofferedalimitedrangeofmaterialtoreaders,andlibraries
struggled with the practical problems of lending e-books to their patrons. In short,
e-bookswereclunkyandcumbersome:inspiteofdevelopers’promises,e-booksdid
notgiveprintbooksandpaperdocumentsseriouscompetition.
As theyears passed,more and more core technologiesfell into place. Although
Microsofthadintroducedatabletcomputerfiveyearsearlier(adevicethatmetwith
littlefanfare),in2007,AmazonsolditsfirstKindle,andin2010,AppleitsfirstiPad.
IgotmyhandsonaniPadrightafteritbecameavailableforsale.Iwasimpressedby
theiPad’sscreen,buttakenabackbyitsweight.TheKindlewasfarlighter,butwas
itlightenoughtobecomeathirdelectronicdevice(anextraburdenontopofalaptop
andamobilephone)forconsumerstototewiththemwhentheytraveled?Yetboth
devicescaughtonquickly.Thedisplays—electronicpaperinonecase,LCDinthe
other—werefinallygoodenough;batterieslasted;theindustrialdesignwasslickand
appealing.People finallystarted readingnovels,comics,andmagazines ontablets.
Wasarevolutionabouttobegin?
More than just being “paper emulators,” researchers thought e-books would
transcend print and open whole new realms for readers. What, though, did readers
wanttodothattheycouldnotwhentheywerereadingonpaper?Didtheywantto
follow links or look up unfamiliar words orfindsupplementarymaterial? It turned
outthatthebiggestadvantageofe-bookswaslikelytobeaccessibility:readerscould
obtain (and indeed carry) an entire library’s worth of books around with them. It
became increasingly easy to find bestsellers to read during a vacation or to carry
aroundone’spersonallibraryonaportabledevice.
Atthesametime,itwasdifficulttoignorethatwordspresentedonascreenstill
were not the same as words printed on paper. Early research to create a paper-like
v
vi Foreword
experience was successful enough to present at conferences, but effecting a wide-
spread change in reading habits proved to be a more elusive goal. In offices, the
paperbegantotakeonatransitionalrole:itwasnolongertherecommendedwayto
storeadocument,butitremainedthepreferredwaytoreadone.Thetruthwasactive
reading practices like highlighting and annotation—measures of true engagement
withmaterial—losttheirunselfconsciousqualitywhenreaderswerefacedwiththese
newdevices.Itwasnotthesametorifflethroughabookusingaslidernortogoback
andforthbetweenpagesasitwaswithawell-placedthumb.
Asgoodresearchers,wehadtoaskourselveswhy.Studyparticipantshavenever
failedtoremindmethatsomeaspectsofreadingonpaperarenotsoreadilyreplaced
bywordsrenderedonahigh-resolutionscreen.SomebroughtupProustianqualities:
the smell of a book or the places they would like to read as children. Others
explained with pragmatic logic that they could not review a journal article as
carefullywithout a pen in handto scribble inthe margins. Still others revealed the
shortfalls of e-books only through their actions, as they held a partially turned
magazine page between their fingers to make the fluid transition from one page to
thenext.AsDr.ShibataandMr.Omurahaveemphasized,readingalwaysinvolves
morethanjustthecomprehensionofdematerializedwordspassingbeforeoureyes
and into our brains: reading, writing, annotating, and drawing all have kinesthetic
elements.
Dr.ShibataandMr.Omura’sbookmakesadetailedandquantitativeexamination
ofreadingasanembodied,physicalact.Throughtheirownlab’sexperimentsandby
consulting the ample literature on reading, they have explored such diverse topics
and cognitive mysteries as the differences in understanding subjects’ experience
reading on paper and on the screen, how readers (and writers) handle multi-page
assignments,theeffectsofpage-turning(afavoriteofmine),aswellasphysiological
factors such as eye strain. The results have implications for both researchers and
educators: for example, we discover why students appear to learn more when they
readonpaperthanwhentheyusee-textbooks.
The aspect of this work that is particularly important is Dr. Shibata and
Mr.Omura’sdetailedinvestigationoftheaffordancesofpaper,workwhosegenesis
can be traced back to the early 1990s when Xerox PARC researchers—ethnogra-
phers, psychologists, sociologists, and computer scientists—began to ask them-
selves how people used paper documents at work, from post-its to sketchpads to
technicalmanuals.Theresearchpresentedinthisbookbuildssubstantivelyonthis
body of work, emphasizing new quantitative results that show how the physical
aspectsofpapercontributetoitsreadability.AstheauthorsconcludeinChapter5,
“thereadabilityofpaperislargelyduetotheeaseofhandlingratherthantheeaseof
viewing.”
Foreword vii
Iamparticularlyfondofthepersonalreflectionssprinkledthroughoutthechap-
ters. They leaven the experimental results and literature review with wonderful
anecdotesandmakereadingthebookapleasure.
IhopeyouwillfindDr.ShibataandMr.Omura’sbookasthought-provokingand
thoroughasIdid.
TexasA&MUniversity,College CatherineC.Marshall
Station,TX,USA
July25,2020
Preface
“Ifyou are just looking atdocuments, a PC or tablet issufficient. However, if you
want to read or write documents seriously, you will probably want to work with
paper.”Weguessthatmanypeoplefeelthisway.
The aim of this book is to clarify “the greatness of reading and writing with
paper.”Therehavebeenmanybooksprofessingadmirationforliteraryreadingand
writingonpaperfromahumanisticpointofview.However,therearefewbooksthat
have unraveled the wonder of reading and writing on paper through scientific
evidenceandnumericaldata.Wewantedtowriteandpublishsuchabook.
Contrarytoourinitialplan,thishasbecomeabookpraisingpaper.Wewouldfirst
like to explain the reasons for this. The authors of this book started work at Fuji
Xerox believing in the possibilities of digital media. Our former parent company,
Xerox Corporation in the USA, grew by developing photocopying and printing
services,butatthesametimeitalsohadavisionforthefutureofdigitaldocuments
and digital communication. Xerox created many advanced technologies that
supported the foundation of today’s information and communication technology
(ICT), including the concepts of dynabook and ubiquitous computing. At Fuji
Xerox, the authors engaged in research to explore new forms of media with the
hopeofcreatingsuchnewtechnologies.Stillyoungatthattime,webelievedinthe
futurerealizationofpaperlessworkorthepaperlessoffice.Wealsohadtheideathat
paper would eventually disappear naturally or else that it would be something we
mustdestroy.Wewerenotfascinatedbypaperfromthebeginning.Rather,itwasthe
opposite.
In 2007, we published a Japanese translation of the book “The Myth of the
Paperless Office” written by Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper. Using an ethno-
graphic approach, Sellen and Harper carefully observed how paper was used in
offices and discovered that paper documents played an important role in organiza-
tionsthatcouldnotbefulfilledbydigitaltools.
Wealsobegantodoresearchonreadingandwritingusingpaper.Weadoptedthe
methodology of using experiments to compare reading and writing performance
(e.g.,readingspeedoraccuracy)whenusingpaperanddigitalmedia.Comparisons
ix
x Preface
of performance can objectively and quantitatively illustrate the relative merits of
paperanddigitaltools.Moreover,weconductedsurveystoinvestigatehowpeople
wereusingpaperanddigitalmediaandhowtheyfeltaboutthem.
The biggest appeal of this book is that it clarifies that the ease of reading from
paper is due to the manipulability of paper as a physical object. While reading,
people use their bodies, both hands, and all 10 fingers to perform various actions
such as arranging documents, turning pages, and pointing to text. The ease of
performing these actions greatly supports the ease of reading from paper. Our
summariesoftheseexperimentsarethemaintopicsofthisbook(seeChap.5).
Basedontheseexperiments,thisbookattemptstocautionagainstanexcessiveor
overlyhastytransitiontodigitalization.Humancognitivefunctionsadapttodigital
environments. How will this change human reading and writing abilities? Will
humans become more intellectual and creative? This is also a problem closely tied
to the education and future of our children. Many recent studies indicate negative
changesinhumancognitivefunctionscausedbytheabuseofdigitaltools.
Inthefuture,weexpecttheemergenceofdigitalmediathatwillsupportreading
and writing better than paper. We believe that the ideal future technologies to
support reading and writing should be considered based on an understanding of
the reading and writing currently done on paper. We present some suggestions for
futuredigitalmediaforreadingandwriting.
Withthisinmind,weespeciallyhopethatthefollowingtypesofpeoplereadthis
book. The first type are those who want to gain a scientific understanding of the
wonders of reading and writing on paper. The second type are those who want to
work more efficiently by selectively using paper and digital tools as needed. The
third type are those who are engaged in or interested in the development of new
mediaorservicesforreadingandwriting.Wehopethatbyreadingthisbook,these
peoplewillbeabletoreconsiderthepowerofpaperinpreparationforthewonderful
futureofreadingandwriting.
Thisbookintroducestheresultsofvariousexperiments.Itmaybecategorizedas
a specialized book for researchers. However, we made efforts to describe the
experimentsinplaintermstoensurethatanyone,eventhosewithoutexpertknowl-
edgeofcognitivescienceorergonomicscanreaditeasily.Forthisreason,thereare
somepartswherewehavepurposelyomitteddetails.Ifyouwouldliketolearnmore,
pleaserefertothereferences.
Maebashi,Gunma,Japan HirohitoShibata
Yokohama,Kanagawa,Japan KengoOmura
September2020
Trademarks
(cid:129) WindowsisatrademarkofMicrosoftCorporation.
(cid:129) AdobeReaderisatrademarkofAdobeSystemsIncorporated.
(cid:129) iPadandiPadProaretrademarksofAppleInc.
(cid:129) KindleandKindlePaperwhitearetrademarksofAmazon.
(cid:129) LIBRIe,SonyReader,andDigitalPaperaretrademarksofSonyCorporation.
(cid:129) Other company names and product names listed in the book are registered
trademarksortrademarksoftheirrespectiveowners.
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