Does anyone else find it harder to read on screen than in a page?

[Nonplusultra]

I feel significantly stupider when I’m reading relatively complex information on a screen versus in a book. I don’t know if this is age related because I was studying paper in my formative years.

It’s not something I’d notice reading light fiction on a kindle. But when I need to hold several concepts or ideas in my head at once, I can’t do it as well with a screen.

Is this just me?
It concerns me how much education is screen dependent now. The year behind ds use iPads instead of school books. And submit everything digitally. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.

Yes, me. I also find it much quicker and easier to draft to paper first then type things up and polish them.

Definitely.

Yep, me too. When doing my master's I used to print PDFs of scientific papers and scribble notes on them, otherwise I just didn't parse or retain the info properly. I could highlight paragraphs on the PDF all I wanted, but give me an old-fashioned printout any day! Sorry trees 😬

I think it's something to do with screens being vertical whereas my natural reading position is angled in front of me.

I'm the same. With a book you can easily leaf back a few pages, but it feels harder with a screen. I ger all my insurance documents, for example, sent as paper as it's easier to check them. I rarely read 'books' on my Kindle. Books don't run out of juice either.

When doing my master's I used to print PDFs of scientific papers and scribble notes on them, otherwise I just didn't parse or retain the info properly.

I did the same thing during my degree.

When Kindles first came out I thought it would be life changing as I have a house full of books. However, I found I couldn't remember plot points and often struggled to remember who was who, as well as re-reading the same line again and again. It really surprised me as reading has always been something I found easy, but reading on a screen feels like a chore.

Yes. At work I have to print out really complicated docs so I can concentrate on them.

Pleased I am not alone in disliking reading things on screens (PC or Kindle) and much prefer to actually read on paper.

I had thought that perhaps being a left-handed person the move to next page, scroll down or up was not natural to me. Also I am an older person in my seventies who is used to reading books in the traditonal way all my life.

I also find that being a fast reader the kindle cannot hold enough words on the page - if you can understand that. Because I do not read every single word I was reaching the limit of the screen too quickly and having to slide to the next page felt unnatural

It's not age related, but what you are used to. I'm nearly 50 and I read most of my stuff on screen. My job means nothing is printed. All information is online.

What you need is a big screen with high resolution. You can get a lot of information on a page.

Slightly different situation - I have light-sensitive epilepsy and can't use a computer screen for reading documents. I mainly get absence seizures and find myself reading over the same paragraphs over and over again. The information just doesn't get from my eyeballs to my brain. The problem doesn't happen for old-school reading.

Unfortunately many online documents don't lend themselves to being printed and read as they contain clickable links that can't work (obviously!).

I have absolutely no references immediatel to hand, helpful as that isn’t, but it’s common and quite well-documented that deeper understanding is achieved more easily by reading hard copy rather than digitally. You’re not alone!

I find a screen good for novels. The Kindle is a boon for holidays. For documents and work stuff I prefer paper.

Glad to know I’m not alone. I feel very guilty anytime I print something now.

@Brackhurst I might dive down that rabbit hole when I get a chance. I’m very curious to know if those effects are also seen with the digital natives.

My son was struggling in his first year at Uni with everything being on screen and nothing on paper/books. (It was the covid year, so all lectures/tutorials were online and nothing at all in person). He was constantly trying to write notes on paper but spent too much time re-writing what was on the screen!

I got him to email all the course notes, powerpoint slides, sample questions, etc., and I printed them out for him. He much preferred having them on paper in front of him! So, we continued doing that for all 3 years, even when they finally started doing "face to face" lectures again, he took in a paper version of the notes/slides so he could write on them, highlight them, etc and he turned them into revision notes for the exams, i.e. like you could with old fashioned books by putting post-it notes on the more important pages with formula/examples, etc.

So it's not just us "oldies" who prefer paper!

He'd been using e-text books in school before that, and didn't like them either!

I thought I would be a convert to Kindle, but I just can’t do it. It doesn’t feel like I’m reading for pleasure looking at a screen. I need the feel and smell of a book. It doesn’t bother me so much for work as it’s easier to read and edit documents on screen.