The recent study period has brought into sharp relief the advantages and disadvantages of not using a computer for revision. I have been traversing great distances in the library to obtain reading material. The law reports and latest journals are spread out across the entire first floor which extends to a different block. The older journals are on the second floor, and I am usually situated on the third floor because it is nearest the more pleasant restroom and I use the toilet more often than I have to get up to look for cases. All this has meant a fair bit of walking around and getting distracted by such curiosities as the Military Court of Appeal reports and the Supreme Court annual reports.
The hefty law reports and compiled journals also do much to detract from focused revision. All sorts of interesting reads may be found in any volume, from Andrew Phang JA's exhortation to the legal profession in David Rasif's case to my company law tutor's impassioned and, at one point, graphic defence of section 377A of the Penal Code. Not all of it is useless, however: I have included extracurricular information to some success in examinations and assignments. Nevertheless the return on investment in this manner of studying, if it can be so termed, is very low.
I was therefore somewhat tempted by advertisements for notebook computers for less than a thousand dollars. But I quickly reminded myself that using a computer would mean searching high and low (mostly low) for a power source each time I wanted to study for a sustained period. This has become quite obviously harder these days, and I often see poor sods walking up and down the aisles and then leaving in disappointment.
Just this morning I read Janadas Devan's piece in the Sunday Times on reading online (
Is the Internet killing our ability to read? p. 37) . He cited a study that found that only 16 per cent of people read an online text in the order it appeared, with most people skipping around. Another found that people switched to a new task online every 3 minutes on average and took 23 minutes to return to abandoned tasks. An authority on neuroscience (although no indication of a study is given for this point) said that we read 20-30 per cent more slowly on screen than in print. I would probably do even worse than these averages. I think I will continue taking notes by hand and reading printed law reports and journals, even if it means stalking the aisles of the library for a few years to come.
