Ferris Jabr, author of The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Papers versus Screens informs his audiences with informational articles on various topics. Jabr is an experienced writer as he writer for multiple sites like The New Yorker, The New York Time Magazine, and Scientific American. He currently is still writing for those sites at in house in Portland Oregon and has been published recently. Known for his scientific articles Jabr spends a lot of his time writing about the environment and how humans interact with it. Jabr has a masters in journalism from New York University, and a Bachelors of Science from Tufts University. During his at Tufts University he study not only english but psychology. During an interview with the website Student Voices Jabr says, “So, for me, science writing is an incredibly effective a way to communicate how the world works. I also hope to write pieces that people enjoy reading.” (An Interview with Ferris Jabr). For this specific article Jabr talks about how what source you are reading on can affect what you comprehend. Ferris Jabr has proven to himself to be a very reliable source with an ample amount of knowledge about how our brain works and how it is changing with times.
As for the audience is concerned, Ferris Jabr tends to aim his writing towards educators and avid readers. The information that is being presented in The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Papers versus Screens is written at a level any high schooler would not have trouble reading. This allows for the article to be read easily and easy to follow. Jabr includes many facts about studies to back up his points in the article. Whenever he claims something in the text he provides a study done to back up his points. He does this to tell the audience that his claims are not of his own personal opinions but one developed through information. Jabr uses different techniques to grab the audience’s attention like either stating facts about a study, or a story of someone. To start the article uses story of a little girl whos is mistaking a magazine for an ipad. He states, “In a viral YouTube video from October 2011 a one-year-old girl sweeps her fingers across an iPad’s touch screen, shuffling groups of icons. In the following scenes she appears to pinch, swipe and prod the pages of paper magazines as though they too were screens.” (The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Papers versus Screens) This introduces the article’s main argument with a fun story that intreads people to keep on reading. The rest of the article can be geared towards anyone who reads on either e-readers or a book, but the targeted audience is educators. Jabr gives results of studies that tell if children read better n tablets or when reading with a book. It tells eductors which source is best for the students to best comprehend what they are reading. Jabr does a great job at balancing not just writing to educators, but to anyone who is just scrolling through Scientific American and was interested in the article.
The purpose for Ferris Jabr to write this article was to inform the readers the science behind reading on a screen versus a book. He tells the readers the advantages of reading on a book rather than reading on a screen. He goes through the effects of the digital age has had on how kids learned how to read and write. Jabr structures his article in a way which he would claim why the digital age is affecting how people read, and then explains why that is through evidence. He wants to inform people like educators the effects of learning to read on a screen, or reading too much on a screen. His argument of this claim is that students become less interested in reading while reading on a screen, and do not comprehend as much as opposed to reading on paper. He backs up this argument with, “evidence from laboratory experiments, polls and consumer reports indicates that modern screens and e-readers fail to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss and, more importantly, prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way. In turn, such navigational difficulties may subtly inhibit reading comprehension.” (The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Papers versus Screens). Jabr claims his argument and then provides results of studies to to defend it.
This article was written in the spring of 2013, e-readers have been out for almost 6 years as the Kindle first came out in 2007. This being published in about 5 years ago means the information can still be used, but might be a little outdated as new studies might have been done. This being said all the research will be up to date with the article. Jabr also mentions past studies that have been done on the topic. Here Jabr states, “Before 1992 most studies concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively on screens than on paper. Studies published since the early 1990s, however, have produced more inconsistent results:” (The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Papers versus Screens). Then later on the article Jabr will dissect later studies to help argue his claim. Beside him mentioning research being done before 1992 the information in the article is still relevant as the latest study he mentions was a study done by Anne Mangen of the University of Stavanger in Norway in 2013. This being posted on Scientific American gives it more credibility as Scientific American is a well known site that post multiple articles every day.
The piece of writing is an essay. Jabr uses an interesting and funny story as an introduction to interest people in reading the article. He uses other people’s quotes and studies to emphasize and prove his point. When reading this article, the reader does not the feeling that Jabr is trying to convince the reader that e-readers are terrible and should have never been made, but him telling the reader that reading on a screen can affect how you learn. Jabr wrote a very easy to follow article that was easy to comprehend. It was a great article to let readers know what the difference is between reading on a screen compared to a book.