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Title

 

Technology is constantly growing and getting more innovative every minute of our life. Because of this, there are many methods of reading print sources such as using an electronic reader, reading it online, reading it on the computer, and using a tablet, just to name a few. Even though technology is expanding, I still think that reading the source in print is the superior method of all.

 

Print has always been the standard and most popular method of newspapers, and I think it will always be. I did a survey of 20 DePaul students of various majors asking what they think is the best medium for reading news sources, and 18 out of 20 of them agreed that print was the superior method.

 

Question #1:  How do you prefer to read news sources?

 

A. Digital (2)

B. Print (18)


Question #2: Why do you prefer to read in the medium you chose for Question #1?

 

People who chose digital:

 

  • "I feel that reading digitally is less cumbersome than reading print. It's easier to bring with you everywhere. I also like how you can search for certain words or topics while reading digitally, which can't be done in Print."
  • "I like using my Kindle for reading just about everything. It's compact and easy to carry around everywhere I go, I can store many different books and newspapers on just one device, it's easy to find where you last left off while reading, and the screen very well resembles ink on paper.

People who chose print:


  • "I feel like I remember things more easily if I read in print because there aren't nearly as many distractions. I also like annotating, which can be very frustrating or even impossible while reading digitally."
  • "I have poor vision, and I have a much easier time with the clarity of print. Reading on a screen is just too blurry and unclear for me.
  • "I always get distracted when I'm reading digitally. I will see something else on the internet or on my phone, and I will immediately stop reading and go to that instead. When reading print, I feel like it's much harder for me to get distracted since there is nothing else except for what's written on the paper."
  • "I like flipping through different sections and seeing the interesting articles in those sections that I probably wouldn't get to by reading digitally. Because of this, I get more bored by reading digitally since I feel like there is a lot more to read while reading print because of the different sections"
  • "I like holding the physical paper in my hand. There is something special to me that I really can't describe in words about holding the physical paper that I don't get with digital reading.
  • "I like marking up and annotating articles, which is very hard to do while reading digitally."

I also asked them why they thought that the medium they chose was superior. The people that argued that print was superior argued that it was easier to flip through sections, there are less distractions, and it’s easier to identify who the author of an article is. People who argued that reading it electronically was superior argued that it is more compact and easier to bring around with you, and you don’t have to constantly flip through sections to find the articles that you want.


While I do agree with what people said about reading electronically, I agree much more with the people that favored print. I personally love flipping through the sections of a newspaper. I often find interesting articles this way that I would not find by reading the paper online.

I think that one of the biggest reasons why I think print is far superior to electronic sources is that electronic sources are full of other distractions. Just think about it, if you are reading on your computer and you get an alert that you have a new e-mail or get a notification on facebook, you will be extremely tempted to stop reading and go 
check facebook or your e-mail, and it will be more difficult to go back to reading the article. This would often happen to me in high school when a lot of our reading homework was electronic. I would often print out the reading so I wouldn’t get distracted by other things on the computer.


There are currently about 800,000 applications available in the Apple app store, many of them being games. Ipads and Iphones have become extremely popular in the past several years. Many people use these devices to read news sources. While I do agree that it’s convenient, I think that all of the other applications serve as a distraction. If you turn on your Ipad or Iphone to read the newspaper, and you see that you have an Angry Birds update available, you will be tempted to update it and play the game. Knowing the popularity and addictiveness of games such as Angry Birds, people can play these games for literally hours at a time because they are very addicting and you want to keep playing to try to get the best score you possibly can. The amount of time that you spend playing the fun, but time wasting games on your device just could have been spent reading interesting and informative articles.

In Naomi Baron’s article Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media, Baron conducted a survey of 82 college students asking them questions about digital and print media. One of the questions on the survey was about multitasking when reading digital and print sources. 90% of the students said that they were likely to multitask while reading digitally, but only 1% said that they were likely to multitask while they read print. Also, when they were asked about what they didn’t like about reading digitally, 91% of the responses had something to do about them getting distracted by other things.

While I do agree with the pros of digital reading such as being more convenient and easier to carry around with you, I think that reading in print has more pros than reading digitally, such as remembering what you read more and not getting distracted. Even though the number of ways we can read digitally is constantly increasing because of new technology, I feel that print is and will always be the superior choice for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

 

Baron, Naomi. "Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication    Media."PLMA 128.1 (2013): 193-200. Print.

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.