Interesting piece around the screen vs paper reading experience.

Back in the 1960s/70s, Eric McLuhan (son of Marshall McLuhan) created the "Fordham experiment", which involved showing two groups of people the same piece of film, one group as a film-like projection from behind the audience, and the other as a TV-like projection from behind the screen. The outcome is that the two groups showed clear differences in the way they percieve the film (there is a story about one of the groups in one screening launghing so much that someone from the second group went around to check if they were actually watching the same thing.)

I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence (and experienced it myself) of reading the same document on a screen countless times, only to find that when I print it out I notice a typo or other mistage straight away. It feels like there is a clear difference between print and screen reading — but I can't put my finger on exactly how it is different, or if there is a particular type of reading that a screen is better for — or if there are any techniques that might compensate for the screen/print difference (eg. if I read from an iPad that isn't connected to the internet and has "do not disturb" enabled, would it change my frame of mind while reading in a way that would change the way I process the text?)

Something about this final line resonated with me as well.

But every now and then I meet a 20-something digital native who reads print newspapers, too. I immediately assume they have a great future.

Some Random Nerd