Reading Printed Material Is Better for Comprehension Than Digital Content: Study

School library books in a file photo. (John Moore/Getty Images)

People comprehend content they read via printed material better than what they read through digital media, according to a recent review of several studies.

The analysis, published in Review of Educational Research magazine, looked at multiple studies between 2000 and 2022 involving 469,564 individuals, analyzing the relationship between leisure digital reading habits and reading comprehension. It concluded that “leisure digital reading does not seem to pay off in terms of reading comprehension, at least, as much as traditional print reading does.”

The authors are Lidia Altamura, a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Reading Research Structure of the University of Valencia in Spain, and professors Cristina Vargas and Ladislao Salmerón.

In a Dec. 14 statement, they explained that the positive relationship between reading printed texts and text comprehension was much higher than what they observed for reading digital media.

“This means, for example, that if a student spends 10 hours reading books on paper, their comprehension will probably be 6 to 8 times greater than if they read on digital devices for the same amount of time,” said Ms. Vargas and Mr. Salmerón.

Moreover, the authors found that the majority of digital reading analyzed as part of the research, whether it involved social media or informational reading, showed “minimal associations” with text comprehension.

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“One might have expected that reading for informational purposes (i.e., visiting Wikipedia or other educational websites; reading news, or reading e-books) would be much more positively related to comprehension, but this is not the case,” the researchers wrote in the study.

The study also found that when individuals were younger, there was a greater correlation between reading printed material and text comprehension, but as they grew older, comprehension from digital content improved.

The authors concluded that reading should be encouraged in primary and secondary schools, especially in the printed format. In total, the review analyzed 25 studies. The research was done in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Lack of Comprehension

Digital reading can create overconfidence in the sense that people who read on screens tend to do so casually, rushing through blocks of text without fully understanding them.

“We read digital [text] more quickly, [so] we think we must understand it better,” Lauren Singer Trakhman, who studies reading comprehension at the University of Maryland, College Park, told BrainFacts.org.

“It’s one of the best parts of our digital world—everything is at our fingertips and we can get the headlines in a second—but it may also be one of the pitfalls. Everything’s so quick and accessible that we may not be truly digesting [what we read] anymore.”

In 2016, Ms. Trakhman was the co-author of a study analyzing differences in reading comprehension when students read digital and print texts. The study involved 90 undergraduate students who read various newspaper articles and book excerpts, both digitally and in print.

When polled by researchers, students typically predicted that they had better comprehension when reading digitally. However, the analysis showed the opposite. It found that “performance was not consistent with students’ preferences and outcome predictions.

“While there were no differences across mediums when students identified the main idea of the text, students recalled key points linked to the main idea and other relevant information better when engaged with print.”

Engaging the Brain

Anne Mangen, a literacy professor at the University of Stavanger in Norway, told BrainFacts that digital reading negatively affects comprehension, especially when it comes to longer, complex texts.

This is due to digital media training the brain to process information more quickly and less thoroughly as it is exposed to content on a rapid basis, she stated.

“[Print reading] is kind of like meditation—focusing our attention on something still,” Ms. Mangen stated. “And it’s a whole different kind of immersion than responding to [digital] stimuli. I think it’s healthy for us as human beings to sit down with something that doesn’t move, ping, or call on our attention.”

In an April op-ed, Shakil Rabbi, an assistant professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, pointed out the key differences between reading print and online.

When reading a traditional book or other printed material, the eyes tend to move in a series of short, rapid movements which are followed by a short pause during which the brain processes the information.

This process takes place in the language centers of the brain and allows the reader to comprehend and retain details more efficiently. People also translate what they read into symbols and mediate such information through their imagination.

A person reading from a screen will have their eyes scanning the text in a more continuous fashion, without making any pause for the brain to process the information. This can lead to lower comprehension of the content. Since more visual input is being fed, the brain may choose not to engage the language centers.

Reading from digital screens also tends to be more distracting as the constant popups and ads can disrupt an individual’s focus.