Page 133 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

proposal combining the knowledge and efforts of the various agents involved in what was then a new and unknown reading process, with the urgency of anticipating a future that needed to be foreseen at the same time as it was being built.
The main objectives of the programme were:
• To experiment in order to glean empirical data on which to base the programme’s different actions;
• To give impetus to specific projects and guidelines for using electronic books in different contexts;
• To train professionals to implement this new format in their various fields of work;
• To make them known to school, library and university communities in Spain and overseas;
• To document in order to collect and organise all the information linked to the development of the programme and the experiences and practices implemented in other places, and
• To publish the results in order to transfer knowledge and extrapolate the experience to other places.
The first stage of the project involved readers aged between 55 and 75. The results refuted the preconception that older people are reluctant to use digital devices. According to Javier Nó, a pro- fessor at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca who took part in the experiment as a researcher, “practically all readers aged over 55 would recommend electronic books to friends and relatives”. And more than 85% of them would be willing to buy one.74 We will now examine some of the most interesting conclusions reached by this report in relation to older readers.
According to the report, regular readers aged over 55 are highly receptive to the new digital formats. They quickly become accustomed to using them and value their advantages over their disadvantages. Despite not being the age group most accustomed to new technologies, they are not reluctant to adopt new devices, and their prevailing concern is reading as opposed to the characteristics of the device.
However, older people who adapt to electronic reading devices are more concerned with effi- cient reading (configuration of paragraphs, line breaks...) than with technical aspects related to the information society (connectivity, memory...).
Furthermore, the research also showed that accompaniment and activities designed to boost digital reading have a positive impact on the reading experience, in both the adoption and use of devices and in understanding content.
The readers aged over 55 who took part in the experimental group were more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the system and were more confident about discussing them, used digital reading devices more and devoted more time to reading. They also derived greater enjoyment from the novel they were encouraged to read and gained a more elaborate idea of the story and its characters than the readers who did not take part in the experiment designed to give impetus to reading.
The fact is that, as pointed out earlier, the research refuted the preconceived idea that readers accustomed to paper books are reluctant to change, especially older people.
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
133
Readers in the digital age