EDITORIAL: Print is the next big thing

“Print is dead,” say advocates of a paperless society.
 
“Not so fast,” say those who know better.

Forgive our arrogance, but count us as among those who might know better. Full disclosure here: Our livelihood comes from a combination of print and electronic news and advertising, the majority being from print.

So it’s no surprise that our ink-stained fingers rose from our keyboards earlier this week when we read (yes, on an agenda printed on common office paper and in a story in this very newspaper) about the latest efforts of the paperless advocates.

At Tuesday’s McLeod County Board meeting, commissioners learned of a pilot project by Minnesota’s First Judicial District for an automated/electronic performance evaluation program. “Performance reviews will all be electronic to eliminate paper and create more efficiencies,” the agenda read.

On the same day, a story on page 2A in this newspaper told how a Hutchinson High School task force hopes to encourage the school to move to electronic class syllabi and paperless assignments.

Those efforts will be successful if the judicial district’s performance reviews are short, and if the high school’s syllabi and class assignments are equally brief. But if any of those reports are of considerable length, forget digital technology.

If it’s long, put it on paper
The majority of us still want to read long printed works on paper. Research bears out our preference for paper.

In a column for the National Newspaper Association’s Publisher’s Auxiliary, John Richard Schrock argues that if you choose electronics for reading long pieces of text, your child will get a “70 percent life.” He calls the “revolution” of going paperless a case of “the emperor’s new education.”

Mr. Schrock points out that award-winning industrial psychologist Charles Bigelow has discovered we read computer screens nearly 30 percent slower than we read print. “This is because of our eye physiology and because of the poor resolution of the media,” he says.

Likewise, we comprehend less when we read online rather than in print. Forrester Research found our retention is 30 percent lower, according to Mr. Schrock.

The message for high-tech, paperless schools is simple, he says: “If students are forced to do all class work at lower speed and comprehension, they will need five years to learn the same material they would learn by reading conventional textbooks in four.”

The same warning should apply to offices that frown on paper and favor computer screens. Workers who are forced to read long reports on their computer screens won’t have the same retention as those who read those reports on paper. And they won’t read those reports as fast.

Print, digital both have their place
This doesn’t mean that paperless applications are a bad thing. Digital technology is often preferable for searching and scanning short snippets, according to author John Miedema. In his book, “Slow Reading” (March 2009, Litwin Books, $12.95), Mr. Miedema writes that there is a close relationship between the media we use to read — books or digital technology — and the way we read and think.

“Print has endured because it is still the superior technology for reading anything of length, quality or substance,” he says. “While digital technology lends itself to discovering and remixing ideas in novel ways, slow reading of books is still essential for nurturing literacy and the capacity for extended linear thought.”

This also applies to long newspaper and magazine stories.

As for the latest generation of e-books, Mr. Meidema is as cautionary as Charles Bigelow. To be processed by the human brain, text needs the fixity provided by print. And despite technological advances, even the newest e-books don’t have that fixity.

It’s not the e-books shouldn’t exist. They have their place, alongside print books. Just like news being read at hutchinsonleader.com has its place alongside the print edition of the paper.

Of course, we’d all like to save trees and the energy that’s used to make paper and publish reading materials. Just don’t look to the digital revolution alone for those ecological savings.

Since the 1990s, the use of paper in homes and offices has soared. The technologies that were supposed to replace paper — such as e-mail, electronic date storage and the Web — have actually led to more paper usage. Analysts expect paper consumption for certain purposes to get worse before it gets better.

Whether we like it or not, print is the next big thing.

(Editorials are written by Publisher Matt McMillan and Editor Doug Hanneman. They can be reached at mcmillan@hutchinsonleader.com, or hanneman@hutchinsonleader.com.)