{"id":4550,"date":"2017-09-11T18:01:33","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T01:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2017-09-11T18:03:09","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T01:03:09","slug":"digital-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/2017\/09\/11\/digital-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"digital<\/p>\n

I've written previously about the great laptop ban debate<\/a>. Now seems as good a time as any to embark on yet another controversial topic:<\/p>\n

Digital reading<\/h1>\n

Naomi Baron in The New Republic argues that digital reading is no substitute for the printed word<\/a>. A couple paragraphs in, she does indicate that there's no simple answer to whether or not we learn better when reading in a digital format versus tangible books, however.<\/p>\n

Why I Primarily Read Digitally<\/h2>\n

While I am among those who love the smell and feel of books, I still wind up doing most of my reading in digital form. Here are some reasons why:<\/p>\n

Portability<\/h3>\n

Almost all my reading is done on my 10.5″ iPad Pro<\/a>. It goes with me everywhere. To work, when I arrive a few minutes early to pick our kids up from school, to a doctor's appointment, and even to bed.<\/p>\n

Night mode<\/h3>\n

I read at least an hour per night. Most apps have a setting that makes the background black and the text white. The Kindle app lets me adjust the brightness of the white text such that it emits as little light as possible.<\/p>\n

Saving highlights and notes<\/h3>\n

It is as easy to highlight something in my Kindle app<\/a>, as dragging my finger across the words I want to highlight. All highlights and notes are all then kept in a single place, making them that much easier to reference in the future. Highlights in physical books aren't at all easy to leverage, after I finishing reading something and put the book away on a shelf.<\/p>\n

The Amazon Kindle site for storing all our highlights and notes<\/a> recently went through a welcomed overhaul<\/a>. The old system regularly confounded me. This one makes it easy to view my various Kindle books on the left, see my highlights and notes on the right, and search for books I've previously read.<\/p>\n

Motivation<\/h3>\n

I use a service called Goodreads<\/a> to track the books I've read and see what others I'm connected with in the community are reading. Goodreads<\/a> invites me to set a reading challenge each year. Tracking my progress has definitely urged me to read more books than I otherwise might have in prior years.<\/p>\n

To date, I have read 16 of my planned 20 books for 2017<\/a>. I should easily be able to achieve my goal by the end of the year. I may even set my sights on reading 24 books in 2018.<\/p>\n

Flexibility<\/h3>\n

Some publications, such as The Atlantic<\/a>, are now even making their articles available as spoken word audio files<\/a>. I was able to listen to this powerful piece<\/a>by Ta-Nehisi Coates the other night, while getting ready for bed. I did miss hearing Ta-Nehisi's own inflection in his words, but the audio feature still afforded me more flexibility in how to consume his writing.<\/p>\n

Dave<\/a> does the majority of his reading in the form of listening to audio books<\/a>. I might do the same, if I didn't have so many podcasts to try (and fail) to keep up with… Dave<\/a> especially likes when he owns the audio and the digital copy of a book, as it syncs his reading progress within the two formats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cautionary Notes<\/h2>\n

It isn't all unicorns and rainbows with digital reading, however. There are some potential downsides, if we aren't careful.<\/p>\n

Distractions<\/h3>\n

The number one downside to digital reading for me is the potential for distractions. As I have been writing this blog post, I've encountered:<\/p>\n