DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Print vs. Digital Literacy: The Breakdown               

 

Which is better for learning, comprehension, and memory: reading the New York Times in print or on digital devices? After examining over thirty students' research pieces on the subject, one thing remains clear: there is no way to objectively say either way. Nearly every piece concluded with a statement similar to this: “It is evident that both print and digital versions of the New York Times can give readers different interpreting experiences while reading articles.” The strongest assertion an individual can fairly make is one towards their own personal preferences. This “meta” article will attempt to document the trends and dominant arguments in WRD104 students’ print and digital literacy articles.

               

I broke each piece up into one of three categories, and tallied them:

  • a preference towards print throughout the piece
  • a preference towards digital throughout the piece
  • a general stance of “no stance” (student researchers were not required to take a position; thus, many treated a review of the research as an open-minded inquiry project)

Although nearly every essay covered both sides fairly, it was clear in the majority of them which side of the fence the writer preferred. I’ve compiled the data into this chart:

As you can see, there is a slight inclination towards digital media, perhaps more than one would expect. What does this mean for us? It does not mean that digital is more preferred as a whole, and it does not even mean that college-aged students prefer digital as a whole. The data set is too small to make any broad statements. What we can conjecture is that students in a similar situation to DePaul students are beginning to swing towards digital media. As many of the articles point out, we spend so much of our time consuming digital materials, that we are more comfortable with them at this point.


One common oddity is that many of the students seemed to believe their opinion was that of the majority with little evidence to back it up. They felt so strongly about their opinion that they assumed others must see it the same way.

               

A frequent argument for print media was that biologically speaking, paper articles enhance comprehension and reduce eye fatigue. Despite marked improvements in digital technology, Matthew P. points out that readers still read 20-30 percent faster when reading on paper. Also brought up in Matthew’s article is the argument that the digital medium is full of distractions. While a paper is set up in a controlled way where the producers can maniuplate the way your eye falls across the page, the digital platform is much more volatile with everything from flashing advertisements to user defined fonts.

               

August K. brings up an interesting counterpoint for why we should be more open to digital media. The ability to "hot edit" a story is something that newspapers cannot and will not ever be able to do. If you look up archives of an old paper, it could very well be supplying you with outdated information. This however also leads to a possible advantage that newspapers can’t redact information they don’t want you to have anymore (for better or for worse).

               

Emily D. continues this pro-digital argument by arguing that serendipity for her is more of a reality on the internet, asserting that a newspaper could never replicate the experience of simply clicking through countless wikipedia articles. She argues that although this may just be viewed as mindless wandering through troves of useless knowledge, to her it is serendipity.

               

The question of convenience seems to be a question of opinion. On one hand, we have Cody S. stating that he believes the ability to take his NYT with him anywhere means that digital means are much more convienient. On top of this, you can zoom the text to any size you want with a simple command. On the other hand, we have Sarah L., who believes that the ability to annotate directly onto paper makes it much more convenient. Mirna M. expands on this by stating that the digital medium requires too many clicks simply to get to an article. In terms of convenience the question lies in what matters most to you. If you prefer the portabilitiy that a cell phone paper offers, digital will bake your cake. If you prefer the paper to be in one succinct, finite pile, the print medium is clearly the one to float your convenience boat.

               

Denise E. brings up a solid point in her article when she says the chosen platform for conveying content should depend on the content itself. For instance, reading a fantasy novel involves getting deeply immersed in the world the author portrays for you, and this can be disturbed by the many distractions of a digital platform. On the other hand, if you are reading for informational purposes, you are likley to be skimming and cross-referincing other sources, where it would be advantageous to have access to the internet and everything else a computer or smart phone can offer you. Newspapers do not contain the ability to right click a word and select define; to get a definition or background on a subject you either have to open a dictionary or encyclopedia or make your way online at which point you are using a hybrid form of media.

               

An argument made in Jacqueline V.’s project is that by fully switching to digital, we can reduce the impact on our enviornment by reducing the number of trees we destroy as well as reduce the amount of ink we use. It is worth pointing out that this is missing some of the bigger issues with paper production -- namely air, water, and land pollution. Less than 10% of paper is produced from old growth forests, the rest being made from plantation forests. No matter where it comes from, the envoiornmental impact of producing massive quatities of paper every single day can be draining. If we were to achieve some people’s ideal world where everybody read the same paper every single day, the amount of paper production alone would be utterly unsustainable, and hazardous. As a counter point, digital access shouldn’t get a free pass as it still takes a toll on the enviorment to run servers and support the digital devices that run the medium.


Opinions on this topic are pretty evenly distributed with a good portion of the students doing a good job taking a hybrid perspective. It would be unfair to say that one was better because of science or because we need to save the environment because that puts an assumption on all of humanity that these are what we need to care the most about when it comes to consuming media. In reality, most people are more worried about convinence and how enjoyable the overall experience of reading an article was. 


Perhaps in future WRD Print & Digital Literacy Projects, a focus on "convenience" as a value in reading, learning, memory, and comprehension contexts can reveal even more practical data and opportunities for reflection on the role of reading in education.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.