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I hope you are safe amidst the COVID-19 crisis. One of the most effective precautions against the disease is social distancing, hence the closing of schools and businesses in many countries. If you find yourself with a lot of free time, you could use it to read books. 我希望你在疫情中依然健康。防范这种疾病最有效的措施之一就是保持社交距离，因此许多国家都关闭了学校和商业场所。如果你发现自己拥有了很多可以自由支配的时间，可以利用它来读书。 This got me thinking - what’s the most effective way to read a book? Should you stick to paper books you can flip the pages, dog-ear and write notes in the margin? What about Kindle or other eReaders, which let you download new books instantly and cheaply? Is it okay to listen to an audiobook instead, or is that “cheating”? 这让我思考，什么是阅读一本书最有效的方式？应该坚持阅读纸书，从而可以翻页、折角、在边上写批注吗？Kindle或其他电子阅读器怎么样？它们可以让你便宜、迅捷地下载新书。听有声书可以吗？还是那只是自欺欺人？ The research on the effectiveness of different forms of reading seems to indicate no significant difference. There’s some research in favor of paper, for instance this study that suggested mind wandering was higher with audiobooks. Other studies have favored paper over digital. 对不同形式阅读有效性的研究似乎表明，纸书、电子书、有声书之间没有显著差异。有些研究支持纸书，例如有研究认为，听有声书时思维更容易走神。其他研究认为纸书比电子书更好。 However, my overall impression of the research is that the differences are slight, and probably outweighed by personal preference or convenience. In other words, if you prefer paper, ebook or audiobook, you’re probably free to make that choice yourself. 然而，我对这项研究的整体印象是，不同形式的书阅读效果差异很小，相比个人偏好或方便性而言不值一提。换句话说，如果你喜欢纸书、电子书，或者有声书，尽可以自己自由地做出选择。 My Approach to Reading 我的读书方式 I use all three formats to read, and I think the benefits of doing all is better than using just one alone. 这三种阅读形式我都会使用，而且我认为，这比只选择其中一种形式更好。 The benefit of audiobooks are obvious: you can do other stuff while you listen. True, multitasking is likely to impair your retention and comprehension compared to complete focus. Therefore, I don’t think this is a good approach if you’re studying. But, if the choice is between folding laundry without a book and folding laundry while listening to a book, you’re definitely learning more in the latter case. 有声书的好处很明显：你可以一边做其他事一边听有声书。确实，相比于全神贯注的阅读，同时做几件事可能有损于专注力和理解力。因此，如果你是在学习，我觉得这不是一个好方式。但如果是在一边叠衣服一边听书，与只叠衣服之间选择，显然前一种情况可以学到更多。 Kindle, and eReaders in general, also have similar advantages. Being able to get books-on- demand helps me a ton in research, and for filling gaps when I don’t have any books I particularly want to read. The ability to download samples has become my new approach to building a reading queue—every time I hear of a good book, I get the sample and only buy when I finish that. This saves money, but also prevents me from forgetting about books I was recommended. Kindle以及一般而言的电子阅读器，也有类似的优势。能够获得需要的书对我的研究帮助甚大，也在我没有什么特别想读的书时填补了空白。下载样章的功能已经成了我安排阅读序列的新方法——每当听说一本好书，我就下载样章，直到读完之后才买。这既省了钱，也避免我忘了被推荐过的书。 Although it’s not the feature most people need, I also find digital books to be much, much easier for searching. Many books don’t have decent indices, and even when they do digital search is so much faster. When I do book reviews, for instance, I often read over my notes and highlights to refresh my understanding, something much easier to achieve with digital. 尽管可能不是大多数人需要的功能，但我发现电子书让搜索变得非常非常简单。许多书都没有好的索引，即使有索引，数字化搜索也要快得多。例如，我在写书评时，经常会再读一遍笔记和画的重点，从而重新想起我对书的理解。这在电子媒介上要容易实现得多。 Side note: I like digital search so much that when I do only have a paper copy (which is common with academic books / textbooks), I often use Google Book search to find the page numbers which have the info I care about. 附注：我非常喜欢电子搜索，以至于当只有纸质书（这对于学术书/教材来说很常见）时，我通常会用谷歌图书的搜索功能找到包含想要信息的页码。 Paper books are probably best for more serious study when deep learning is more important than convenience. There’s a few good reasons for this: 纸质书或许最适合更加严肃的阅读，此时深度学习比方便更重要。下面是一些原因： 1. Text is non-linear in general. You almost never read things in a linear progression of words and sentences, but jump back to make sense of new passages as you get more information. This is particularly true for hard books. When I recently started reading Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, I made sure to get it on paper. 1 文字普遍是非线性的。你几乎不会按照词句的线性顺序阅读内容，而是随着掌握更多信息，会翻回前面的内容，帮助理解新的知识。对于艰深的书来说尤其如此。当我最近开始阅读海德格尔的《存在与时间》时，我确保自己读的是纸质书。 2. Paper is easier for flipping back-and-forth. While a novel might not benefit so much from this, it’s essential for reading textbooks. Being able to quickly jump between relevant sections to see connections is still much easier with paper than eReaders. 2 纸质书方便前后翻页。尽管这对小说可能用处不大，但对于课本却至关重要。迅速跳转到相关的段落并发现它们之间的关联，纸质书依然要比电子阅读器容易得多。 How Should You Approach Your Reading? 你应该用什么方式阅读？ My advice is that if you’re serious about reading more books (and learning more in general) you should have all three: 我的建议是，如果你认真地想要读更多书（整体上学到更多知识），就应该三种形式都利用： 1. Have audiobooks for moments when sitting down to read won’t work. 1 当无法坐下来阅读时，听有声书。 2. Keep a Kindle (and Kindle app for your phone) to increase portability and access more books more quickly. 2 有一部Kindle（并在手机里装上Kindle应用程序），方便随身携带书，并能更迅速地获得更多书。 3. Stick to paper books when you need to study it deeply (say for a class, work or something you expect to be difficult). 3 在需要深入研究（例如为了上课、工作，或你预期会很难的内容）时，坚持读纸质书。 >>> 热门主题 <<< |
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