# Why do some older people have such trouble reading text/retaining what they have read on screens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 7, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813 "2010-11-07T19:43:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/21 "2010-11-08T02:47:41Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > What **Zsofia** said - the Kindle isn’t backlit. If you want to read it in dim light, you have to turn a lamp on. It’s as easy on the eyes as a book. Which is why I don’t get why people position the iPad as a Kindle competitor. It isn’t the same thing at all; if I wanted to read a book on a computer I’d take my laptop. I read plenty of things on computers, but I prefer a book or my Kindle for fiction. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/22 "2010-11-08T03:25:09Z")
What about the psychology? I have “older” students (some of who are younger than I am) who freeze up when facing a computer screen. _“Ummm, I had a box come up…”_, I hear across the classroom. “What does it say?” _“Ummm, I don’t know…”_ Since I’m helping other students across a large Mac lab, I ask: “Can you read it to me?” \*“Ummm, no, I clicked on it and it went away.” \*“Did you read what it said first?” _“No, it looked like something went wrong, so I clicked it! … I guess I panicked.”_ And I swear they’re predisposed to forgetting how to repeat the same two simple steps they did TEN minutes before. Because it’s a computer. If it was a mixer or a drill or a recipe or a cryptoquote, they’d be fine. But if it’s on a screen, they just _know_ it’s too complex for them, and the adrenaline level spikes. Thank you for this thread! I’m impressed with the “old farts” here that are using Kindles and iPads and reading online, and aren’t scared of technology. It gives me hope. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/23 "2010-11-08T03:42:58Z")
By the way, it was one of my 20-something students who, when I asked the class how they’d feel about having the textbook on a Kindle, picked up his open book and took a big whiff of “Dead Tree Book Smell”. _“Naah, rather have a real book.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Parenchyma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Parenchyma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parenchyma)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/24 "2010-11-08T06:08:48Z")
One thing that helps this older person read some websites, especially those cluttered at the edges with all kinds of links and distractions, or those with the white font on black background, is this service called [Readability](http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/). It used to be enough just to increase the font size with Firefox. Now I often use Readability to just read the main story without the crap. You just set up your desired page format and get a bookmark link. Then if you’re on a page from say, the NYTimes, and click the Readability bookmark, it transforms your page to having just the main text running from side to side. Everything else is disappeared. It’s not useful for message boards but it’s great for news articles and fiction. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/25 "2010-11-08T07:51:02Z")
I’m 65, and have been working on computers for 40 years. I’ve never had this problem. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/26 "2010-11-08T12:54:54Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Which is why I don’t get why people position the iPad as a Kindle competitor. It isn’t the same thing at all; if I wanted to read a book on a computer I’d take my laptop. I read plenty of things on computers, but I prefer a book or my Kindle for fiction. It’s definitely not much of a competitor; I have both and iPad and a Kindle, and I’ve got the Kindle software installed on the iPad. I’ve used it to read for maybe 5 minutes, before I said to myself “I love the iPad, but give me my Kindle for hardcore reading.” Not only is the screen too bright, but it’s far too heavy. One of the things I love about the Kindle (besides the screen) is that I can hold it in one hand comfortably for hours and hours. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/27 "2010-11-08T13:03:47Z")
Memory and retention is a complex dynamic (scent is an amazingly effective memory trigger) - as someone stated upthread, people learn in different ways. I would posit that the preference for reading with paper is similar to the preference for bound books. There is a level of physical interaction that reinforces the learning/retention experience. Many people intuitively know this and express their preference for printed material. The Kindle strikes a balance by replicating the physical size of a book, and having the page turning activity. For me I know I can read anything I want on a screen, but I still like my newspapers, magazines, and books. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/28 "2010-11-08T13:09:25Z")
I just had an insight on a certain kind of _young_ people who have trouble reading things on computers: the ones I know are all huge consumers of glow-pens, whereas the people of varying ages I know who treat those pens like they’re made from the Devil’s own pee are much more amenable to reading on a screen. This second group is also heavily allergic to lending books to members of the first group. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/29 "2010-11-08T14:05:30Z")
Oh, highlighters? Is that what they call them elsewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/30 "2010-11-08T14:11:19Z")
I hate hate hate highlights all over a page. Mr. Athena does that, and as far as I’m concerned, the book is destroyed. I can’t read the damn thing with highlights all over it. I ran into the “social highlighting” feature of the Kindle the other day and was horrified. Luckily it’s easily turned off. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/31 "2010-11-08T14:28:11Z")
Sorry, that was a Nava-ism. There’s highlights and there’s highlights… I can withstand the orange ones, and the pink ones, and even the green ones, but the yellow ones are good for my BP (it’s usually low, they raise it); they’re like having a bright light shined into my eyes, hence “glow-pens”. For me it’s the visual version of nails on a chalkboard. I do print stuff out if I’m going to be using it a lot and may need to access it with the computer off, but otherwise I’m fine with reading on screen; the only one of my relatives to which the previous line does not apply (my aunt M, in her 60s) uses highlighters. A friend (39) who’s like Paul Bunyan in short and cute, by the time she was done studying for an exam her classnotes would look like a rainbow had barfed all over them. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/32 "2010-11-08T16:05:51Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > I’m your age, and I prefer to do large quantities of reading on paper. This is particularly true with scientific articles, where I have to skip around frequently (text on page 6 refers to figure on page 7 and I’m trying to figure out the details of the methods on page 2 and then need to look up the reference on page 13). Same with me. I’m in my early 40’s, and when I prepared my master’s thesis 10 years ago, I also prepared to have all of my cited articles printed out in hard copy. For me, this was the only way I could organize all of my references. If I found a relevant article, I’d print it out, highlight the relevant material, and put a post-it tab on the page. I ended up with over a hundred articles that I referenced in my thesis. When I wrote it, I had them organized into piles on my desk, on the floor, etc. It would have been hopelessly confusing for me to deal with them all electronically. > [@Nava](#): > > …A friend (39) who’s like Paul Bunyan in short and cute, by the time she was done studying for an exam her classnotes would look like a rainbow had barfed all over them. 😉 When I studied for an exam, I always highlighted my notes in various colors. I’d use a different color for each topic. For some reason, the different colors helped me with retention. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/33 "2010-11-08T16:25:30Z")
God, highlighter people forced me to buy a ton of college textbooks new rather than used - half the time all the used ones on the shelf were all highlighted and scribbled. I can’t read that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/34 "2010-11-08T17:04:46Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > God, highlighter people forced me to buy a ton of college textbooks new rather than used - half the time all the used ones on the shelf were all highlighted and scribbled. I can’t read that stuff. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that way. My husband looked at me like I had three heads when I told him that if he used the highlighter on a shared book, I might as well just go buy another copy because it was useless to me. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/35 "2010-11-08T17:06:53Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Some people are sort of information “hoarders” as well - I have a coworker who has massive life-endangering stacks of papers filling her cubicle, she says because “I can’t read on a screen” but really it’s more like “I have to keep EVERYTHING”. When we throw stuff out (not her stuff, other department stuff!) we have to wait until she’s not around and do it in secret. She’s not the only one like that I’ve met - they feel they don’t “own” something on a screen. It seems that there may be a number of people who print out everything for some reason. I remember working for one company and there was someone in HR whose emails included “Think green, not every email needs to be printed.” in them, seemingly implying that there may be some people who DO think every email needs to be printed. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/36 "2010-11-08T22:30:19Z")
If you think about it, the traditional portrait format of printing documents out on paper was most likely the result of a long process of evolution and elimination by default. Most books are printed this way, too; they’re taller than they are wide and the typical exceptions are large format volumes that are designed more to be “looked at” than read, like coffee-table books. I don’t know why this is so, but I suspect it’s because a page in typical portrait format has proved to provide the optimum balance between not having too much text on one page, but having enough that one part of a page can refer to another part, still in the same page. You wouldn’t want a book to be printed so there was only one paragraph the length of this post on each page; neither would you want a book that had a whole chapter on each page. Computer screens are usually landscape. This initially wouldn’t appear to make a difference, since the amount of “real estate” is theoretically the same. But fewer and longer lines are simply harder to read IMO. If there are line skips to improve readability, the cost of each skip in terms of printed characters is greater, which further reduces the useful content of the screenful. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/37 "2010-11-08T22:39:26Z")
I’ve been reading on screens since I was in junior high in the early 1980s and I have always preferred to read long documents, fiction, and important things on paper. It’s not an “oldie” thing. I absolutely refuse to read fanfic, but if I did, I’d print it out first. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/38 "2010-11-08T22:49:38Z")
I don’t think I have reached the critical age yet, but many of my clients and neighbors certainly have. I have to be prepared to adjust what I say to them. “Do you see that icon on the screen? Click on it” isn’t going to produce the reaction I expect, because they won’t see it, and if they do, they won’t know what “click on it” means. I have many friends who can’t tell the difference between a colon (🙂 and and semicolon (;), or a period and a comma. What bothers me is a friend, an educated man, loquacious in person, but for the last 10 years, his emails consist of disconnected, brief sentence fragments separated by “,”. I finally figured out that his eyesight was so poor that periods and commas look the same to him, and the brevity was caused by his inability to read more on the screen than short phrases and inability to touch-type. Yet he is a successful medical professional, a good photographer, and a decent driver, all of which require a minimum of eyesight acuity. I don’t think these people recognize their failings and \*they don’t know that some others can detect them. \* It’s partly an ego problem. It’s hard to admit that your faculties are failing when most of your brain is still working fine. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/39 "2010-11-08T23:00:07Z")
My dad has poor eyesight and cannot touch type. He compensates in part BY TYPING IN GIANT, COLORED TYPEFACES. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813/40 "2010-11-08T23:07:38Z")
Oh, my dad does ALL CAPS in Excel. I mean, he writes letters in it. I have no idea why. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-older-people-have-such-trouble-reading-text-retaining-what-they-have-read-on-screens/559813.md?page=3)