Books remain ideal learning tool for technology

Que Publishing held an online party in Second Life recently to fete the release of "Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World" -- 416 pages on navigating that user-generated community in which residents buy virtual property, go to virtual work, deal with virtual family members and do all of the other things that, in real life, make us grind our teeth.
Brian White's guide joined "Second Life: The Official Guide" and half a dozen other instructionals explaining how to maximize your "in-world" experience. By year's end, nearly 20 will be on the market, including the tender buddy flick of the SL community: "Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators."
Note: These are all books.
We are all flying thumbs and keystrokes and voice activation and touch-pad shortcuts. We are swimming in technologies and applications, but when it comes to understanding how to really use these shiny new inventions, we rely on a stubborn piece of dead tree, a centuries-old technology.
Richard Mansfield wrote "How to Do Everything With Second Life" in response to SL's steep learning curve: "The first week you're so confused, you go buy some clothing and instead of putting on a jacket you put on the box the jacket comes in. It's very embarrassing. The other avatars know you're new because you're walking around wearing a box."
His book has tips on shopping for new skin, spotting flaws when buying said skin, and what to do if you encounter a three-story-tall gay robot.
"Amp Your MySpace Page" has a six-step checklist on launching a multimedia blitz of self-promotion. "It's not enough just to have a profile on MySpace," the book cautions. "You want to ... develop an online following (and have) other users wanting to know what you're doing and wanting to be your friend."
How-tos on everything
And "YouTube 4 You" dedicates seven pages to browsing for videos (hint: Point and click) and a full chapter to watching them.
Don Norman, author of "The Design of Future Things," calls the book avalanche "both horrifying and amusing. ... Technologies really are being packaged in a way that's not intuitive or usable to the consumer," so publishers seize that market and rush-order them every time something vaguely new rolls out.
Call it the Case of the Missing Instruction Manual. New technologies have always needed some sort of user guide. In 1532, the hand plow was sold with one; in 1892, you could purchase "The Practical Telephone Handbook and Guide to the Telephonic Exchange."
Last century, companies usually provided their own manuals with the product. Norman says that's changing. Manufacturers have begun skipping the user guides altogether or placing manuals online and suggesting you e-mail tech support if you have a problem accessing the Internet.
To the rescue: a new breed of part instructional, part guidebook, part cultural commentary, with names like "Facebook Fanatic: Explode Your Popularity, Secure Your Privacy and Buzz Your Band on Facebook."
Yes, people actually buy these books. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks sales from big-name venues like Borders and Amazon.com, "Second Life: The Official Guide" has sold about 12,000 copies to date.
Select audience
They're not "Da Vinci Code" numbers but, says Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, for a certain type of customer, these books will always have appeal: "They're really for parents and grandparents who are trying to find out what their kids already know."
Which is sort of the problem. As any tween will tell you, your mom is not the groupie you want.
Says Jim Millot, director of business and technology books for Publishers Weekly, "The information in these books seems like perfect examples of material that could best go online." This from a guy whose vitality depends on the continued publication of books.
But here's the place in the article where librarians cheer. From a neuroscientific perspective, books are still the preferable way to learn something new, says University of Virginia cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham. People can read paper comfortably for several hours; computer screens cause eyestrain quickly. Books are organized linearly and come with indexes, so you can easily keep your place. You will never, in the middle of reading a book about iPhones, inadvertently click a few hyperlinks and end up reading about Brangelina.
And there's the comfort factor. Though studies have shown we retain information learned online as well as that learned on-page, we still appreciate a paper security blanket. It's what we're used to -- the ability to annotate and underline, and to refer back and forth from book to screen.
So White, with his in-world launch party and his marriage of old technology to new, could be on to something. "There was a huge amount of questioning over whether a traditional book would be the best format for this information," says White. "But as ironic as it seems, we're always going to need books to learn new technologies."
Source: Monica Hesse
WASHINGTON POST