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Researchers from Princeton University have found that texts written in Comic Sans font might help students retain information. The explanation for this is that Comic Sans is sufficiently unfamiliar in academic contexts that it makes students’ brains work harder. Those who study dyslexia add that as a sans serif font (that is, it does not include tails, called serifs, at the end of letters the way fonts like Garamond, the normal font for the ATA News, does) Comic Sans resembles handwriting more than other fonts and is very readable. By the way, the punchline to the joke is, but the bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve your type here.”
Master or slave?
Researchers at Kent University, in England, used eye tracking software to find that people whose onscreen work was interrupted by such things as e-mail or cellphones reread a substantial portion of the original text when they went back to the screen and that their total reading time increased about 17 per cent. Ulrich Weger, a senior lecturer in psychology at Kent University, began the study based on his own frustrations caused by the constant interruptions to his work by technology. At the end of the study he noted that technology has a mixed effect. “The upside of these devices [e.g., the BlackBerry] is that you don’t have to go home to get the information you need. But the downside is that if you allow yourself to become dependent, they will haunt you. As with all things: if you can make use of something that makes your life easier while maintaining enough inner strength and freedom to avoid dependence, you are the master. If you do not cultivate this inner strength and freedom, you become the slave.”
