Dear editor,
Neuroscientists and academics still do not know just how different reading on paper is from reading on a screen, but public discussions in South Korea and overseas are getting interesting ― and heated.
Some pundits believe that future MRI scans of the brain when people are tested while reading from paper and then reading from screens will help us understand the issue better.
This work is being done now in a few research labs around the world, and my guess is that academics in Seoul are watching this closely, too.
When I asked a noted writer on technology in New York about this, he replied:
``A good test would be not telling the subjects the real purpose of the experiment, letting some read and comment on a text displayed in a printed book or on a computer screen or on a reader (e-ink or TFT), and then let raters, also unaware of the real purpose, look for differences in what people write after different modes."
Let the research begin. Because the results could better spell out the future of screen-reading devices and the roles they will play in our children's and grandchildren's lives.
Danny Bloom Chiayi City, Taiwan danbloom@gmail.com