Research Suggests E-Readers Are "Too Easy" To Read

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Research Suggests E-Readers Are "Too Easy" To Read

New research suggests that the clear screens and easily read fonts of e-readers makes your brain "lazy." According to Neuroscience blogger Jonah Lehrer, using electronic books like the Kindle and Sony Reader makes you less likely to remember what you have read because the devices are so easy on the eyes. From the article: "Rather than making things clearer, e-readers and computers prevent us from absorbing information because their crisp screens and fonts tell our subconscious that the words they convey are not important, it is claimed. In contrast, handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content of the message is important and worth remembering, experts say."

Before you say "WTF is this BS?!?!?!", read this part:

A study funded by Princeton University, published in the Cognition journal, found that people are better at retaining information written in a less fluent font.

Researchers asked 28 participants aged 18 to 40 to learn a set of facts about three fictional species of alien, which were written in different fonts.

Those who read the facts in the easy-to-read Arial pure black font retained 14 per cent less information than those who were given text written in the less clear Comic Sans MS and Bodoni MT.

The scientists wrote that "making material harder to learn can improve long-term learning and retention. More cognitive engagement leads to deeper processing", enabling the reader to recall the information more accurately.

Weird. I guess this means that e-readers should use a handwriting font or that 28 people was not a large enough sample size. :whistling: