From: Laval Hunsucker <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:51:18 -0800

Glad to have this latest installment of statistics from your
continuing unobtrusive observational research, as I suppose a social
scientist would normally call it. And I'm wondering about the point of
the study -- that is to say:

Is there in fact a population to which you're hopeful of generalizing
from this sample, broader than let's say all current Sunday train
takers between D.C. and Wilmington (or Philly, NYC, . . .)? --  People
in general?  Readers in general?  Train travelers in general?
Travelers in general?  Adult residents of the north-central U.S. East
Coast?  Today's Americans?

Anyway, another perhaps interesting research question might be the
extent to which choosing to travel by train, or by a certain kind of
train such as the I assume more expensive Acela, in the first place,
correlates positively with fondness for reading. (Also: the degree to
which the *content*/genre etc. dictates or influences the choice of
medium (device or codex) or, alternatively, the other way around.) And
would you observe the same codex/device ratios in an airport, or say a
hospital, waiting area? on the deck of a cruise ship? at the doctor's
office? among readers in their own homes?

Incidentally,

> Twenty years ago, the choices were read or sleep.  Then it
> was read, sleep, or type.  Now it's read, sleep, type, or divert
> yourself with video (numerous tablets doing that) or facebook
> or texting or twittering or . . . .

Aren't you leaving out another important choice, for both then and now
(apart from staring out the window): i.e., conversing with a
fellow-passenger or passengers, either travel-mates or strangers? In
this country at least (OK -- insofar as I am the unobtrusive observing
party on local but, even more so, express trains), this choice is so
commonly operative that it frequently hinders me and many others in
our reading activity -- be that in codex- or device-enabled form.

Some reports of empirical research on reading in trains does exist, by
the way. Interestingly, a recent study on German trains (reported by
Kamp, Kilincsoy, & Vink in _Ergonomics_ 54.11 (Nov 2011), on
p.1029-1042) revealed that "the most observed activity was talking and
discussing, closely followed by relaxing and reading". Although a 2007
study (Khan & Sundström, "Effects of vibration on sedentary activities
in passenger trains", in _Journal of low frequency noise, vibration
and active control_ 26.1, p.43-55) found "chatting with other
passengers" a frequent activity on Swedish trains though less so than
reading, a master's thesis from the same year found "that the top
three activities on trains in India were talking to fellow passengers,
no particular activity (interpreted as relaxing) and reading". It
seems we could use a whole lot of further, preferably also
qualitative, research in this area.

Then again, there are those who might *like* to read but don't because
the combination of reading and movement makes them nauseous. Or worse.
Interestingly enough, there was a short piece in the Christmas 1872
number of _Bow bells : a magazine of general literature and art for
family reading_, on p.532, called "Reading in the trains". There you
will even find stated: "The practice of reading in railway trains has
often been objected to by medical authorities ... and if the practice
of railroad reading is persisted in, [it] must result in  permanent
injury. ... The safe and prudent mode is to read little, if any. The
deliberate finishing of volumes in railway trains is highly
detrimental."  Has our technology improved that much :-)?


- Laval Hunsucker
  Breukelen, Nederland