Reading print aids comprehension better than reading on digital screen
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Researchers at the University of Valencia reveal that screen time for reading purposes barely serves to the benefit of text and reading comprehension for students.
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Books are displayed at a bookseller booth in Paris, Tuesday, August 22, 2023. (AP)
A new study by researchers at the University of Valencia discovered that reading on paper aids in text comprehension better than reading on digital devices and screens.
Researchers said, "The main conclusion is that leisure reading habits on screen are minimally related to reading comprehension," adding that the connection "between the frequency of reading printed texts and text comprehension is much higher (between 0.30 and 0.40) than what we found for leisure digital reading habits (0.05)."
Co-authors Cristina Vargas and Ladislao Salmerón explained, "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".
Published earlier this week in the Review of Educational Research, the study revealed that with age, the relationship between recreational reading on digital devices and text comprehension develops more positively.
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25 studies on reading comprehension published between 2000 and 2022 were analyzed with over 450,000 participants.
One researcher claimed, "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".
