The argument between physical books and digital books
What's the fundamental difference between reading physical books and E-Books?
Both formats can provide information and have their own pros and cons, but most readers still prefer reading physical ones.
I prefer reading physical books.
The tactile experience I get in reading physical books is unbeatable for me.
Like the book's smell, the paper's texture, and the actual flipping of the book's page. Those are inconsequential things in our reading experience, but it sets physical books apart.
Don't get me wrong, I also love reading digital ones.
One of the most important features of a digital book is its content is searchable. In just a few keystrokes of your keyboard or phone screen, voilà, you now have the word you're looking for.
Both formats have their own flair and both can help us learn something new in their own ways.
But is one format more helpful than the other in retaining information?
I would love to tackle information retention.
The information abundance phenomenon had already happened, and we're seeing how these phenomena are affecting our lives both physically and digitally.
My question is:
Did we lose our ability to retain information?
Nope, but it degraded over the past years.
We know the saying:
"We now have shorter attention spans than a goldfish. Today, the average attention span is 8.25 seconds, while a goldfish is 9 seconds."
That's painful when you read it.
What caused this massive degradation of our capabilities to retain information?
It's the sudden surge of information.
The dawn of the Internet created a gargantuan opportunity to publish information.
We went from limited information that some people can only access to unlimited information that anyone can access.
That surge affected the beginning of the internet, and fast-forward today, we’re living in a crowded, noisy, and often, useless information.
That surge affected the beginning of the internet, and fast-forward today, we're living in a crowded, noisy, and often times, useless information.
This applies to the books we read.
Case in point: The shelf life of information you read.
Physical books, in my experience, have a longer information shelf life.
Why? Three reasons:
- You don't have to open your computer, cellphone, or dedicated digital book reader. You just have to reach out the book, open it, and start reading.
- Your device stores your digital books, and these devices have distracting notifications. Even if you mute the notifications, there will be times when you’ll check other installed apps.
- Your digital library can get daunting once you see its growing list of titles. Once it gets too crowded, you'll have a hard time choosing which book you'll read.
Now, I'm not telling you physical books are exempt from distractions. There'll be times when you're reading them, and outside influence will distract you.
Often these distractions will hamper your reading experience, and it gets difficult to return to the state of flow.
For me, the argument between physical books and digital books lies in distractions.
Reading physical books has fewer distractions, but once you get distracted, you'll have a hard time returning to your book.
Digital books have frequent distractions. Even if you mute notifications, our brain desires to seek more information.
So how do we recover our ability to retain information?
I did one thing, and this applies to both book formats.
Taking down notes.
To extend the information shelf life of both book formats, I capture and write down their essential information.
Use pen-and-paper for your initial notes; then if you can use note-taking tools such as Obsidian, transfer your paper notes to Obsidian.
Keep your paper notes because if an emergency happens, and you can't access your digital notes, you can always access your paper notes fast.
While you're transferring your notes to a digital one, you'll have a moment of insight because you're rereading the information you wrote, thus retaining information.
While you're in that zone, you'll also add your own thoughts to those notes, and you'll also extract the most important information from those "raw" notes.
In short:
Often these distractions will hamper your reading experience, and it gets difficult to return to the state of flow.
For me, the argument between physical books and digital books lies in distractions.
Reading physical books has fewer distractions, but once you get distracted, you'll have a hard time returning to your book.
Digital books have frequent distractions. Even if you mute notifications, our brain desires to seek more information.
So how do we recover our ability to retain information?
I did one thing, and this applies to both book formats.
Taking down notes.
To extend the information shelf life of both book formats, I capture and write down their essential information.
Use pen-and-paper for your initial notes; then if you can use note-taking tools such as Obsidian, transfer your paper notes to Obsidian.
Keep your paper notes because if an emergency happens, and you can't access your digital notes, you can always access your paper notes fast.
While you're transferring your notes to a digital one, you'll have a moment of insight because you're rereading the information you wrote, thus retaining information.
While you're in that zone, you'll also add your own thoughts to those notes, and you'll also extract the most important information from those "raw" notes.
In short:
- You read a book (physical or digital)
- You write its essential information
- You add your own thoughts to the essential information
- You actively engage with your thoughts and relate them to the ideas behind the book.
- You contextualize your notes and keep them for future reference.
The result is you'll retain information, and it has a longer shelf life.
The battle you'll experience when making notes is the amount of distraction you'll encounter along the way.
Physical books have fewer distractions, therefore I prefer reading this format to digital ones.
There's no argument between physical books and digital books. Both formats can help you learn something new.
The only argument is how we approach them while knowing there's a potential distraction 24/7.
Let's do our best to not get distracted and let's get more into flow.