Which is better, an ebook or a paperback?

Which is better, an ebook or a paperback?

A book is a source of knowledge and always a pleasant pastime. By reading, we get the necessary information, learn from the experience of others and draw some conclusions. But in what form exactly should we read literature so that our brain absorbs information to the maximum? What is better: e-books or paper ones - is there an unambiguous answer to this question, let's figure it out.

Advantages and disadvantages of a paper book

The following advantages of a paper book can be distinguished:

• it is pleasant to hold it in your hands, turning over real pages and looking at the illustrations;
• in a paper book, you can make a bookmark or put the necessary note in the margins;
• the book has a characteristic smell of paper and printing ink, which allows you to feel that you are holding in your hands a real source of knowledge, adventures, advice, recommendations;
• reading the paper version makes it easier and faster to memorize information related to associations;
• Such books can be shared with friends and relatives – of course, you can share a PDF file, but this is something different than handing a person a real book with kind words;
• when reading a paper book, there are no distractions, as it is possible when reading an electronic version from a tablet or smartphone, where various advertising blocks or notifications often pop up;
• Each paper book is unique and charming, as it has its own design.

Advantages and disadvantages of a paper bookAlong with a lot of advantages of paper literature, there are also some disadvantages:

• sometimes it is simply impossible to store a huge number of paper books in an apartment or house;
• when on the shelves for a long time, books gather dust;
• Paper books in large quantities cannot be taken with you on the road.

Advantages and disadvantages of an eBook
Among the advantages of the electronic version are:

• the ability to take the required amount of literature with you on a trip - all of it will take up as much space as an electronic reader, tablet or laptop;
• at any time you can find the desired author and start reading anywhere;
• you can set a convenient font depending on the characteristics of the organ of vision;
• the e-book is practical and modern;
• The electronic version allows you to significantly save money, since the purchase of paper books is sometimes very expensive.

The disadvantages of the e-book are the following:

• designers take part in the creation of a paper book, whose work can simply be lost in the electronic version;
• it is impossible to feel the texture and characteristic smell of the pages;
• there is no way to look at the illustrations;
• Information from such a book is less assimilated due to the fact that there are no tactile sensations, the pages of the book are similar to one another and there are fewer associative thoughts.

Why does the brain perceive information from a paper book better?

Human memory works due to associations, that is, not only certain information is remembered, but also everything that the brain can associate with it. This feature of our memory allows us to remember huge amounts of information. The new material to remember will be associated with the place where you read the book, turned its pages, and enjoyed the pictures.

Reading a paper book, a person remembers the texture of the paper, its characteristic smell, the location of the text and images on the page. All these elements are connected to what you read, and then it becomes difficult for the brain to forget it. There are even some studies on this topic. For example, the participants of one conference, of which there were 50 people, were given a story of 28 pages. Half of the participants read it on an electronic reader, and the other half read it on paper. And as the experiment showed, the format of the book did not affect people's emotions at all, but it did very much affect memorability. When participants were asked to tell what was said in the text, those who read the story on paper coped better. And the other half of the people who read the story with the help of an electronic reader were confused and retold as if they had read the story a long time ago and inattentively.

So, we can conclude that for better memorization, it is better to read real paper books. But again, this is for an amateur - someone will do well with an electronic version, which is easier to take and from which the information will be perceived no worse, since a person seeks to get the most out of reading.