Vilifying screen time isn't great either, are the negative effects coming from actual screens or brightly-coloured games designed for dopamine hits? Is reading on a screen functionally different from a book in terms of attention span?
"...Conclusion: Main findings show that students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally..."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256563189_Reading_l...
Kindle interface is okayish but you still can't flip back and forth as effortlessly as actual paper.
They concluded that the physical differences of books (size, weight, feel, cover) may help to form memories.
I can't say the above is proven fact. Citation definitely needed, but I find it a compelling idea, and would like to learn more.
Incidentally efficient language learning also uses somewhat superfluous activities to help create memories and improve retention. Our brains do seem to thrive off stimulation from multiple sources.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256563189_Reading_l...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb...
Most digital readers aren't much better, though.
The only time I flick forwards is to see how much is left of the chapter, backwards is max one page, kindle have status for how much is left. So guess that depends on how you normally read
But personally I can recall the specific size, weight, smell and texture of physical books I've read. It adds context and helps distinguish books as independent physical entities which (I believe) helps with recall. On the other hand digital books have begun to blend together for me.
Again very anecdotal.
All in all, I can read for hours on a e-ink display, but my eyes hurt soon on a normal screen. But az least they improved a lot compared from the old bulky ones.
e-readers and physical books just don't provide as many possibilities for distraction.
The day I find a baby swiping up on an iPad will be momentous in my mind :).
- due to the length of the stimulus text, difference could be related to issues of navigation within the document
- scrolling as it's imposing a spatial instability which may negatively affect the reader’s mental representation of the text and, by implication, comprehension
- disrupted mental maps of the text in digital group, which may be reflected in poorer understanding and ultimately poorer recall of presented material
- the dual-task involved in switching between two windows displayed on the same computer screen is likely to present additional cognitive challenges to the reader (one displaying the text to be read, the other displaying the questions to be answered)
- the common perception of digital screen presentation as an information source intended for shallow messages may reduce the mobilization of cognitive resources
- LCD computer screens like the ones used in this study are known to cause visual fatigue due to their emitting light. In contrast, ebook technologies based on electronic ink, such as Kindle and Koboo, are merely reflecting light
> the Remember–Know paradigm describes two main types of retrieval response, Remember versus Know. Knowledge which is Remembered is typically recollected in close association with related information pertaining to the learning episode. By contrast, knowledge which is Known is recalled, retrieved and applied without any such additional contextual associations and ‘‘thus, is information which is simply based on a certain sense of just knowing or familiarity [. . .].’’ (Noyes & Garland, 2003, p. 415) One important implication is that the Remember type of memory is thus more vulnerable to fading with time, than knowledge which is Known. By implication, it is assumed that knowledge which is Known is indicative of better learning (Conway, Gardiner, Perfect, Anderson, & Cohen, 1997; Herbert & Burt, 2001). In their experiment, Noyes and Garland (2003) found no differences between the two media (paper versus VDT) in terms of study and reading times, and number of correct answers. On the qualitative comprehension measures, however, there was an effect of presentation medium, with Remember frequencies being almost twice that of Know frequencies in the computer group, while Remember and Know response levels were similar in the Paper group. Noyes and Garland conclude that ‘‘characteristics of the computer screen (refresh rate, high levels of contrast and fluctuating luminance) interfere with cognitive processing for long-term memory’’ (2003, p. 420). These findings were replicated in a later study (Garland & Noyes, 2004),
where the medium was either a PDF or a print version.
> There are several possible explanations why, in the present study, subjects in the print condition scored significantly higher on the comprehension tests than those in the screen condition. Considering the length of the stimulus text, and the fact that the computer condition text was in PDF format, the difference in comprehension performance between the print and the computer group could be related to issues of navigation within the document. When reading on screen, scrolling is inevitable unless the text is within the screen size. Scrolling is known to hamper the process of reading, by imposing a spatial instability which may negatively affect the reader’s mental representation of the text and, by implication, comprehension (Baccino, 2004; Eklundh, 1992; Piolat, Roussey, & Thunin, 1997). By presenting the texts as PDFs, we intended to minimize the potentially negative effects of scrolling. However, the scrolling option was not excluded from our material. We have no data showing whether or not, and to what extent, the students in the computer condition used the scrolling option when reading the texts. Hence, it cannot be eliminated that students in the computer condition scrolled during reading, and that this scrolling negatively impacted their comprehension performance
I'd like to see a study where the computer test uses an iPad with a PDF app that does horizontal paging instead of scrolling (which is generally what I do with my non-fiction ebooks).
Honestly, the study is worth reading. There are some other factors they mention that could explain the difference, such as the spatial representation and immediate access to the whole text, physical dimensionality, etc.