Reading Books on Paper Faster than on iPad or eBooks, says study.

[HappyDude20]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/200491/reading_on_paper_is_faster_than_ibooks_on_the_ipad.html

Personally I don't think this is true.

Thanks to the iPad vie managed to carry around my library collection with me and have been reading books as opposed to none at all as I was doing before I got the iPad.

Anyone got any input on this?

I feel the ipad is a great ebook reader, though know it'll be ten times better with the retune display on the second generation, hint hint.

 

[IrishVixen]

Utter and complete BS. Any Kindle user will tell you they read significantly faster on the Kindle than they did with paper. The only thing I've noticed about reading on the iPad is I'm too easily distracted (email, forums, games, etc.) But that's ADHD for you. I still read faster on it than I do a paper book if I can keep myself on track, though slower than I do on the Kindle.

And I wouldn't take a paper book over either device. The only time I pick up a paper book is if it's not available at all in ebook format...and even then, I'm far more likely to just find another ebook.

 

[ajones46]

I think you're comparing two different things. Reading time vs ease of reading. Yes, you can carry your entire collection of books with you everywhere, which in turn will allow you to read your books faster (a better word would be sooner), than reading a plain paperback. But say you have both copies of a book, one paperback and one on an iPad, give for example a 1 minute time limit, you'll read more on the paperback.

 

[Hammie]

I'm not sure if the speed of which I read has changed, but I know it has affected the AMOUNT that I read. Actually, I seem to finish books quicker just because it is easier to carry an iPad around versus a bunch of paper books.

I also think that a user sampling of 24 users is not a great sample for this kind of research. They also need to test age groups and how they vary within them.

Personally, I love my iPad for reading and will never go back to paper books (unless they never convert my favorite ones to ebook format, which they have not yet. ).

 

[ColReb22]

The only thing I've noticed is that I will lose my place and reread a line instead of dropping down to the next line more on the iPad which slows me down a little. But that could be a learning curve issue, or I could just be weird. I'd take the convenience over reading slightly faster any day though.

 

[Hammie]

I think you're comparing two different things. Reading time vs ease of reading. Yes, you can carry your entire collection of books with you everywhere, which in turn will allow you to read your books faster (a better word would be sooner), than reading a plain paperback. But say you have both copies of a book, one paperback and one on an iPad, give for example a 1 minute time limit, you'll read more on the paperback.

I don't understand how me reading words on one medium is any faster than another. I think it comes down to page rendering, which is mentioned in the article. That could add a few seconds to reading time.

I think this test is silly. No one I know will go from one medium to another just for speed.

Also, I'd be interested in seeing how the test was run. Were they split up into smaller groups and only read on a single device? Was the same sample read by all 24 users on all devices? If it was the same sample, what mediums were read and in what order. (If a person reads a sample, they will automatically be faster the next time they read it.) What was the baseline to be in the study? Was vision taken into consideration? Were the devices configurable to the readers preferences (sepia, larger text, portrait/landscape mode, etc.)?

I know some of my questions were spelled out in the article, but these are still questions that need to be identified before starting a study, IMO.

 

[crackpip]

I find it to be true. I think the difference between mediums is in layout and required interaction. For a book, the interaction is every other page i.e. you can read two pages by only moving your eyes. On the Kindle client (with the default font setting) one page seems to correspond pretty well to one page of a hard cover. Thus, twice as much interaction is required, which interrupts concentration. On a paperback, I average maybe 80-90 pages an hour, but on my iPad maybe only 50-60 pages an hour.

I wonder how different it would be if vertical scrolling were used instead. I think for my next book, I'm going to read it in GoodReader instead of the Kindle client, and see if I find it better.

Of course, I find the convenience of the iPad to more than make up for the decreased reading speed. The inverted color scheme and not needing a reading light is just great.

crackpip

 

[IrishVixen]

I think you're comparing two different things. Reading time vs ease of reading. Yes, you can carry your entire collection of books with you everywhere, which in turn will allow you to read your books faster (a better word would be sooner), than reading a plain paperback. But say you have both copies of a book, one paperback and one on an iPad, give for example a 1 minute time limit, you'll read more on the paperback.

No. Plain and simple. I'm a heavy reader, and I've duplicated many of my paper books onto Kindle for rereading, as well as read approximately 200 net new ebooks over the last year. I can read paper at a speed of about 100 pages an hour. I read the equivalent in ebook format at about 130 page equivalents (not page turn clicks) an hour. That's just sitting down and reading at home, the same exact way I used to read a paper book. I've timed and tracked it previously, because frankly I didn't believe it was possible. And as long as I don't give in to the urge to wander into places like these, I can get similar results from reading on the iPad.

It's a story we see over and over in Kindle forums--new users come in, and once they become comfortable with the interface (generally with a day or two of use) they ask, "does everyone else read faster on this thing?" This same article's posted on all the ereader forums I'm on, and reaction is universal--with a day or two of use, a new reader will find they read ebooks a good deal faster than they do paper. There are a number of theories on why it happens, but so far no one's done a good scientific study to prove things one way or another, much less to narrow down the factors involved.

Small sample size, short duration test, and users who aren't familiar with the hardware...yeah, that will give you accurate results.