Comments on: This is Your Brain on eBooks http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/ the neverending reference interview of life Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:21:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: The Magic of Books! | FAMILY FOUNDATIONS http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-14900 Mon, 05 May 2014 15:49:37 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-14900 […] E-books lack in spatial navigability: […]

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By: Your Brain on Books: 10 Things That Happen to Our Minds When We Read – Gurgaon Connection - Moving, Relocation, Settling, Socializing http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-10800 Thu, 29 Aug 2013 19:09:04 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-10800 […] E-books lack in spatial navigability: […]

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By: Your Brain on Books: 10 Things That Happen to Our Minds When We Read - OEDB.org http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-10677 Fri, 02 Aug 2013 21:31:22 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-10677 […] E-books lack in spatial navigability: […]

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By: Your Brain on Books: 10 Things That Happen to Our Minds When We Read | Do you see what I see? http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-8928 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:41:08 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-8928 [...] E-books lack in spatial navigability: [...]

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By: Help! My e-book reader is eating my brain. | From book to book http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-8099 Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:15:54 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-8099 [...] which is an endless stream of text that is neither verso or recto and has no tactile features. The neuroscience behind this is summarised on the blog Agnostic, Maybe. Evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi talks about memory and the way that the brain processes [...]

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By: ACRLog » The Ebook of My Dreams http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-6517 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:38:55 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-6517 [...] Ebooks need to take advantage of the spatial navigability of the electronic environment. For example, the index should not exist separately as an additional PDF file, as many ebook [...]

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By: Tony Biloni http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-6452 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:21:15 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-6452 Both physical books and e-books are a good thing. I’ve been fascinated with libraries and books since I was a teen and now, 20+ years into my library career, I’m reading more than ever. First it was on my 2nd generation Sony Reader, and now on a 3rd generation Kindle. I can do without page numbers; the device does the bookmarking for me, and Calibre software lets me include or exclude a table of contents.

Page numbers aren’t crucial in how much book context you later can recall.

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By: Andy http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-6434 Mon, 26 Mar 2012 05:44:17 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-6434 Thanks for the information, Oleg. Good to know what kind of basis that some of these scientists are looking at eBooks for.

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By: Oleg K. http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-6427 Sat, 24 Mar 2012 21:55:28 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-6427 Hi Andy,

This is slightly off to the side, but it relates to the articles you’ve linked to here. In 1987, a guy named Jeff Conklin wrote a truly excellent and oft-cited survey of hypertext systems up to that point. In that paper (which is available online here(.pdf)), Conklin talks about two disadvantages of hypertext systems: disorientation and cognitive overload.

Disorientation is “the tendency to lose one’s sense of location and direction in a nonlinear document” and Cognitive Overload is “the additional effort and concentration necessary to maintain several tasks or trails at one time.” — As I see it, both of these are problems that still haven’t quite been licked with ebooks, which aren’t even non-linear.

The problem with ebooks is essentially the same as that of the modern web browser: Only one page open at a time. A simple fix for this to create simple spatial visualization so it’s easy to see a number of pages at a swipe. Other fixes could be devised, I’m sure.

Still, ebooks and ebook readers are not like regular books and likely never will be. Many of the points made in Sellen and Harper’s book The Myth of the Paperless Office (2001) very much still apply today.

Thanks for looking critically at ebooks. Too many these days are getting caught up in the marketing technobabble and being sold features they don’t need while losing ones they do.

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By: Skip Dye (@theRealSkipDye) http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/#comment-6420 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:43:48 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/?p=1354#comment-6420 And I just thought it was my age

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