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Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2019; 67(02): 079
DOI: 10.1055/s-0039-1679874
Editorial
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Stavanger

Markus K. Heinemann
1   Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgery, Universitaetsmedizin Mainz, Mainz, Germany
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Publication History

Publication Date:
07 March 2019 (online)

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This issue has a second, important editorial: “Medical Misinformation: Vet the Message!”[1] authored by Joseph A Hill, Editor-in-Chief of Circulation, in the name of the “Heart Group,” an informal circle of editors of cardiovascular medical journals. The change in media culture observed over the last decade or so causes a lot of valid concerns. Many medical journal editors, including myself, were still educated with books and printed journals and have to adapt to electronic innovations. For most of them, it is completely bewildering that a well-known messenger service has become the principal mode of communication of one of the key opinion leaders of the so-called Western world. The sheer superficiality dictated by the restriction in length is amazing and appalling at the same time—when news, opinions of an important nature, or even political decisions are concerned, not the notification of some friends about a new restaurant or a spectacular article in The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon.

This is where Stavanger comes in. Stavanger is a city in Southern Norway, once an important fishing harbor with canning industry, now the Norwegian oil capital. In October 2018, the interdisciplinary research group named Evolution of Reading in the Age of Digitisation (E-READ) met there and published their Stavanger Declaration. Two important statements[2] from the declaration are as follows:

  1. “Digital environments also pose challenges. Readers are more likely to be overconfident about their comprehension abilities when reading digitally than when reading print, in particular when under time pressure, leading to more skimming and less concentration on reading matter.”

  2. “Research shows that paper remains the preferred reading medium for longer single texts, especially when reading for deeper comprehension and retention.”

Their conclusion[2] was as follows: “Our embodied cognition (i.e. that how and what we learn, know, and can do depends on features of the entire physical body) may contribute to differences between reading on paper and on screen in terms of comprehension and retention. This factor is underestimated by readers, educators and even researchers.”

It seems that there are responsibilities on both sides. Social media must definitely do better to verify the content of the supposed news so readily available for and distributed by them. We as the consumers, on the other hand, must train ourselves as to how to deal with digital information and when to resort to print. This is especially true for the younger generation, proud to call itself “digital natives.”

It does not hurt to fondle and eventually turn a page of paper. More often than not, it is both a mental and particularly a truly sensual pleasure.[3]