The tablet against paper

Tablet against paper: in -depth comparison in education

Paper stimulates the brain while tablets put your neurons sleeping

Written by Gunter Pauli
January 4, 2023

2,300 words article

As an author of 25 pounds and 365 fables, I have a great interest in understanding how to best reach my audience. In addition, how to succeed in what my readers remember what I wrote, even how could I influence their thoughts and actions. My first books were published in 1987. It was of course printed editions.
However, all my books were created on a computer thanks to the foresight of my mother who taught me to use the ten fingers to scroll the content at a rate of 60 to 80 words per minute. I appreciated the arrival of Little Macintosh in 1984 and a year later, I discovered the wonders of computer assisted publication (PAO) with this high -quality Apple Laserwriter.

From the printing of books to instant publication
The arrival of self-publishing-always on paper-with the ability to write a book and put it in a format ready to print in a few days was a revolution that I inspired me to start a new business: instant edition. That same year 1985, I joined Roularta, the Belgian media group to create Roularta Books. We focused on very popular topical subjects, such as how to exploit the flaws of the new tax law and the details of the public purchasing offer of Carlo de Benedetti, the Italian magnate which tried to Take control of Société Générale, the largest Belgian financial group.

It only took 2 weeks to write, and put a book that was quickly made available through large distribution. Our Roularta Books start-up sold 100,000 copies per book in supermarkets and newspaper kiosks, a record at the time. We quickly formed a team capable of writing, translating, publishing and distributing a book simultaneously in 10 languages ​​across Europe.
We did it the first time in 1986 for the book "State of the World" by Lester Brown which, in combination with the American edition, exceeded 250,000 copies. Admittedly, the instant publication is like instant coffee: it contains caffeine, but if you want a good morning drink, you better take the time to prepare a better one.

The financial press goes to digital
digitization during the media has revolutionized the press. As secretary general of the Upefe, the French acronym of the Association of Financial and Economic Media in Europe, I had the privilege of being at the forefront of this digital transition with Les Echos and La Tribune (France ), Actualidad Economic with Expansión (Spain), Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftswoche (Germany), Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy), Vida Economica (Portugal) and Dagens Industric (Sweden), to name a few.

Since 1988, this network of 52 groups of financial media has created a consortium that has digitally processed all the information on the largest companies in each European country, and then combined this data in the classification of the main European companies.
Then, we delivered an edition ready to print consolidated European companies to adapt it to a local audience. The digital world progressed quickly and modified the way in which information was processed. This generated a common European advertising platform which surpassed the dominant global ranking of companies known as "The Fortune 500" in number of copies, readers and income.

Innovations in printing waste management
, however, while we are dealing with information digitally, we still used the print to communicate. Disclafts containing the same information on businesses simply did not appeal to the market, unlike the printed editing. This changed with the arrival of Kindle books in 2007, and shortly after the iPad and tablets. Since I had started to publish my fables, first in Colombia with the United Nations, then in Germany at the Hanover Universal Exhibition in 2000, with the City of Curitiba in Brazil in 2001, and finally with the Chinese government , there was an increasing interest in accessing my illustrated fables in digital format.

At the beginning, I resisted. As a diligent reader of comics like Tintin, I couldn't imagine reading illustrated stories on a flat screen. I felt the need for tactile contact with paper and visual contact with color printing. How could I take advantage of reading shades of gray? In addition, it seemed that I would not grasp the content so easily with so many details if the reading was made available on a controlled light screen.

However, I felt the need to innovate and I recognized that the cost of paper, not only in monetary terms but also in environmental terms, pushed me to think beyond traditional options.
One solution was to redraw the fables in the form of bands and to use the cuts of the presses to print to create folded stories. My first fable "the strongest tree" (written in 1990) was translated into 26 languages ​​and printed on such cuts to a fraction of the cost of a printed booklet. My stories were available for less than one penny out of exemplary, using the cuts of the Deutsche Bank annual report, which caused a marginal cost of only € 10,000 for a million copies. As paper and ink were free, the only cost was the folding of this strip of paper into a double book easy to read barely the size of a child's hand.
Tablet against paper
Students learn English without teaching them
the city of Curitiba offered a unique platform in 2001 to share fables with children. After Casio Taniguchi's decision, then mayor, the teacher union approved the introduction of my fables as a tool to bring nature, sustainability and science to all children.
This required the training of 6,000 teachers and made it possible to receive 120,000 schoolchildren with 11 fables translated into Portuguese. We needed 1.4 million copies. A traditional printing work would have broken the city's education budget.
Inspired by the German example of the year 2000, the folded fables published in English and Portuguese were printed on cut paper from the Banco Do Brasil annual report. This experience allowed me to refine the pedagogy and to note that after three years, children - even living in slums - mastered several hundred words of English - simply by leaving their eyes on the text. It was the first index that the printed version was more than a chance to make the Practical Reading of Gunter Fables available at low cost. This offered additional value compared to the printed version, because a digital version which was not financially viable in Brazil

Learning by reading the print surpasses digital
then, the Chinese government invited me to embark on the biggest project of my fables of all time. When after three years of testing 36 fables in a few hundred Wuxi schools, the Chinese company for the promotion of science and technology, with the support of the Ministry of Ecology and the Environment, decided that fables were to be made available to 5,000 green schools with an average of 2,000 children per school. The digital option seemed to be the smart decision to make. The simple volume of 10 million paper copies seemed to make this project very important in number. The Chinese Environmental Education and Communication Unit of the Ministry (CEEC) has taken up the challenge of translating fables, training teachers, organizing model classes, printing and distributing copies.

Tablet against paper
After three years of work with fables (from number 1 to 108) with the aim that children learn science, understand emotions, master the arts, develop logic and build a new generation of entrepreneurs for the common good, the Question finally arose if the digital version was equal learning with the printed version. Thus, the fourth and fifth series of fables (from number 109 to number 180) were made available to schools in paper and tablet format. The academy and the ministry have jointly studied the appropriation of the content, monitoring in studies, the ability to continue logic, and above all, the motivation to take action.
The results were amazing: the children reading from a paper copy surpassing young people working with digital versions on tablets.

The transition from 2D reading to 3D reading
The key question that pedagogues were "why" were asked? A large series of debates follows and the arguments are very convincing: a tablet mobilizes 1,000 times less neurons than printed books.
" How ? Is the obvious following question. Scientists, in particular neuroscience experts, were convincing in their arguments. When you read on a tablet, you read on a screen, with a controlled light. This facilitates reading by a look at the text and the illustrations in just two dimensions. This clearly reduces the need to activate the brain. In addition, the infrared controls constantly check the lighting conditions and permanently adapt the brightness of the screen to maintain a comparable surface intensity still facilitating easy reading. Is it good?

Doctors of the Academy added to the debate by arguing that the immune system must be challenged. If a child is completely protected against all viruses or bacteria, then the body cannot defend itself when a viral or bacteria attack is imminent. Sports teachers joined the debate and stressed that the muscles that are not regularly requested to lose their vigor and even their mass. Regular exercise is necessary to stay in shape and healthy. The same logic should apply to brain activity: a more intensive use of neurons would also ensure more alive.
According to eminent brain experts like Rodolfo Llinas, professor at the New York University Faculty of Medicine, deliberate activation of brain cells could even stimulate the creation of neurons and increase their interactions.
Holding a printed page never provides a flat surface. Reducing text on paper and illustrations with changing light conditions oblige the brain to activate more neurons. The eyes that skate on the text continuously force the brain to respond to the different reading angles, which creates different forms of each letter, the different colors of illustration and the different light intensities. It is a fact that the transition from a 2D perception on a flat screen to 3D of a book requires a thousand times more "pixels", thus activating more neurons. This implies that reading prints contributes to super brain activation.

The digital guardian against the printed financial time
while I started reading more and more news on digital screens, I decided to test this Chinese experience based on the dissemination of my fables with myself. The results were not surprising: each time I read The Guardian on my phone, the content was ephemeral. Each time I read The Financial Times, especially opinion articles, on distinctive salmon colored paper, content and arguments lingered with me much longer.
Although this personal experience is only an anecdote in the global research on the impact of digital reading in relation to printed reading, science behind observations with millions of children led to the daring decision of the Chinese government : Children aged 3 to 15 will read the Gunter fables in the 795,000 Chinese schools in printed format only.

It is an incredible privilege for a foreign author to have a small "Library of Gunter Fables" in each school with at least three series of 365 fables in English and Chinese. The beginning of my writing of fables was in 1999, some humble fables in Medellin, Colombia, sponsored by the Rotary Club Local. Now, I have reached millions of children with a positive vision of the world, discovering nature and making each child a small entrepreneur for the common good.
To my surprise, in 2019, I was elected one of the ten best science teachers in China, and I do not even speak Chinese. When I challenged government officials about this improbable result, they argued that online vote was coordinated by Alibaba. No one could have orient the general public to one or the other teacher. On the contrary, the government has seen additional proof in my popularity that learning and memorization from the print surpass any digital version of the same content.

Advice: Intelligent children must read printed books
Children are born with an incredible innate ability to learn. Everyone has the right and the ability to be intelligent. Today, all decision -makers feel the need to create an literate computer generation. Therefore, it is common to make children work with tablets and computers. However, this new understanding of the importance of reading the print in relation to digital should encourage political decision -makers to focus less on digital technology and further secure the print reading. Active printing and even produces neurons, perhaps a thousand times more. This then stimulates the brain and makes us more alert, even more happy.

The fact is that our eyes are made for a perception of reality in 3D format. Forcing the brain to absorb knowledge in 2D makes it simply lazy. This is not what we expect from an improved learning environment. Remember that the duration of attention of the children we want to learn is in competition with video games and Tiktok.

This observation probably does not only apply to children in their years of training, this also applies to adults who desperately need to stimulate their brain. Too many of us have become sheep, according to polarized information, living more and more in fear. There is a lot of room to maintain an independent spirit with the formation of opinions and learning throughout life, conditions prior to resilient democracy.

The conclusion is that we should all regain the habit of reading a book regularly, leafing through newspapers and magazines daily. Reading prints could one day be celebrated as one of the best tools to stimulate logic with mindfulness and to avoid forgetting with indifference.

I return to my favorite newspaper in town every day and I get some copies of newspapers. My brain feels challenged.

About the author

Gunter Pauli is an entrepreneur, and for more than a decade president of Novamont, the European leader in bioplastics. It translates scientific and commercial innovation into fables. In 2019, he was elected one of the ten best science teachers in China.

For more information

[Email Protected]

www.guntersfables.org/

Photographs are available on request

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