I don’t really consider myself to be a Millennial. Caught in that awkward stage between Generation X and Millennial, we have sort of experienced the best (and worst) of both worlds. As a late-90s high school graduate, my typing education took place on an actual typewriter. When we had to research anything, we went to the library. The actual building, not the nifty little website that I know and love today. And as an avid reader, I owned piles and piles and stacks of books in print. Honestly, I had no plans to change my ways. Except, obviously, tossing that behemoth typewriter in favor of a shiny new Windows PC. I loved the library. I preferred to read in print because I read, and reread, and mark and mutilate my books, and the scribblings inside may or may not have something to do with the book in question.
When I returned to school for my bachelor’s degree in 2013, obviously things were different. While I was out, Google Scholar and online libraries had become a thing. And I embraced them wholly. I quickly learned that in the EMAC program, professors tended to assign digital readings, both because of the ever-changing material and because, well, they’re just cool like that. Print textbooks are expensive, after all.
I had trouble with it, so Wolf’s theories on digital’s effect on the brain ring with familiarity for me. At first, I had to print a hard copy of everything. To be clear: I had trouble with digital reading, it seemed as though the process (or maybe the ritual) of reading in print was indelibly printed on my brain. As I discussed above, I don’t really consider myself to be a digital native. My preference for print was simply a throwback. But, after three years of reading largely digital copies of everything from academic papers to pop culture articles to novels, I find myself having to shift a gear or two in order to read and comprehend digital vs. print.
As for Baron’s examination of student preference between print and digital, I tend to think that students’ preference of print because it’s “easier to follow stories” may simply come down to the level of distraction afoot on the average student’s laptop or tablet. Having a reading assignment or novel open and in progress on a device is no guarantee that it won’t be accompanied by twelve other tabs, each one containing something different and probably equally fascinating.
Clay Shirky, NYU professor and Internet guru, actually has a few things to say about digital distractions. In an article originally published in Medium, Shirky discusses why, in spite of the fact that he is “an advocate and activist for the free culture movement” and therefore “a pretty unlikely candidate for internet censor”, he began prohibiting the use of laptops, tablets, and phones in his class. His reasoning for this, in spite of the fact that he viewed the keeping of his students’ attention as a challenge, was the simple fact that multi-tasking makes for subpar quality cognitive work.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I’m attempting to read something on my laptop, tablet, or phone, multi-tasking is exactly what I’m doing, almost without fail. And this, just as much as scanning and the advent of nonlinear reading, is responsible for difficulties relating to staying on track with comprehension. And if, as Wolf suggests, we are in need of a bi-literate brain, the need for better comprehension of digital material should go hand-in-hand with better comprehension of print material.
Being a 'print native', I guess you'd maybe call us, the Ramen Noodles Theory made complete sense to me. Of course I read many, many things online. Magazine articles, local news, tidbits from Refinery29, blogs, homework assignments, it's a lengthy list. But I'm old-school too. I pay for print magazine subscriptions, preferring them to the digital versions. I still get the local newspaper delivered every day. The contradictory nature of the Ramen Noodles theory stacked against the seemingly inarguable statistics presented by Kaiser in The Bad News About the News gave me pause, though. I had to stop and consider the distinct probability that they are resting side by side. Online news is prolific, and it doesn't have to come from the traditional sources.
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