Evidence that real books are better than digital reading

[KatBurglar]

I was aware from my own experience that things I read in books and in actual newspapers seems to stay with me more than reading on a tablet, phone or laptop.

Here's a wide study proving paper-reading improves comprehension where digital has no effect. (Nice for a luddite like me to have evidence that my paperback additction is justifiable)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/15/reading-print-improves-comprehension-far-more-than-looking-at-digital-text-say-researchers

I am sad to hear this as reading on my Kindle is really the only way I can afford to read the books I want to read. Paperbacks often cost a lot more and libraries are not an option for me. Oh well.

I just don't have room for all the physical books I read on my Kindle. I have over 800 titles so there's no way I could make room for all those books.

Yeah i much prefer reading actual books but have been converted to kindle due to lack of space, and convenience.

eg l love the Strike series, but the big hardbacks are like 900 pages so not ideal for storing or travelling with.

@Cappuccinfortwo the article explains that the difference is because online reading material tends to be less challenging, not because it’s not on paper. So reading the same book in either format would be of equal benefit, but reading social media is less enhancing than reading a novel. So don’t worry!

It's not entirely clear to me from the article what kind of 'digital reading' the studies are talking about, though -- it sounds more as if they possibly mean 'scrolling through SM, or reading a newspaper article online' than 'reading novels or biographies on a Kindle'. In which case it's really not comparing like with like.

Yes, that was what I got from it. Online reading could be the semi-literate drivelling of someone's subreddit or Draco Malfoy fanfic, or the comments under a Daily Mail froth about Meghan Markle being awful.

Oops, I should have actually read the article properly before commenting. Glad to hear it!

I think l can comprehend pretty clearly on my kindle. I haven’t got room for the millions of books l read. This feels a bit like Ludism.

That's not what it's saying, as I understand it, though. It's not saying that reading Middlemarch on your Kindle is 'worse' than reading it in paper form, it's saying that scrolling through the comments under a tabloid article or FB isn't as good for your comprehension etc as reading books or newspapers. It's the material, not the format.

Likewise, the published book bought in a physical edition could be on the same intellectual level of the Draco Malfoy fanfic, or worse than it. Some fanfiction is very well written, while some published novels are just dreck. The medium itself is not a measure of quality of content.

It could, but it's far less likely. (I have read extremely well-written fanfic, but a traditionally-published novel will be more likely to have had an editor to elicit revisions, a copy-editor, and to have made its way to a bookshop via the winnowing process of an agent, an editor, a sales and marketing department. Rather than the effusions of a lovelorn teenager who spends several thousand unpunctuated words describing how Harry Potter makes Draco Malfoy 'cum' in the Potions classroom during 'prom' or something.)

So it doesn't actually prove what the OP is claiming at all?

I read this yesterday. It’s looking at children’s reading too and notes an inverse relationship between reading online and reading comprehension in primary age students. They note this could be because online reading tends to be interrupted by notifications etc and younger children haven’t yet developed the self regulation to ignore or screen out the distractions and really concentrate on what they are reading. Print materials don’t have this problem. They also noted that relationship flips by secondary school.
So I read it as being really important to get printed books in front of children to build the habit of longer periods of concentration.
I help children with literacy in both primary and secondary, and I see a lot who can’t concentrate long enough for sustained reading. I appreciate that’s for many reasons but this is also one of them.

I think it's surely more to do with content than device? I love Emma Carroll's books, I bought the first one on kindle, decided my dc would like them so purchased the hard copy, in the hope that leaving on the side one of the dc would pick it up and read it, it worked! If I find a really good book (which I think the dc will like as well) I like to buy both mediums, having the kindle app on my phone means if I'm waiting to pick up a dc I can read whilst I wait, but the screen is small and when I'm in bed / bath I like the physical book to read.
I can't see how it's any different, the book is identical in whichever form I read it!

Its a poor article as it's not clear that it's comparing literature vs social media, not books on paper vs ereaders, which look the same as paper and also distraction free unlike the app version in a phone or tablet.

“So it doesn't actually prove what the OP is claiming at all?”

Amusingly, no SoupDragon

Neither does the headline, which is what we've come to expect these days.

Just about every 'news' website is utter shite with a headline that links through to an article that says nothing like what the headline suggests.

That's what I thought. I was worried that my reading comprehension was compromised by using a Kindle rather than paper though.

It also talks about being distracted by messages and app notifications. I don't have either on my kindle.