This passage is adapted from Ferris Jabr, “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens.” ©2013 Scientific American.
How exactly does the technology we use to read change the
way we read? As digital texts and technologies become more
prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but
are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? Should we
be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink
or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?
Understanding how reading on paper is different from
reading on screens requires some explanation of how the brain
interprets written language. We often think of reading as a
cerebral activity concerned with the abstract—with thoughts
and ideas. As far as our brains are concerned, however, text is a
tangible part of the physical world we inhabit. In fact, the brain
essentially regards letters as physical objects because it does
not really have another way of understanding them. After all,
we did not invent writing until relatively recently in our
evolutionary history. So the human brain improvises a brand-
new circuit for reading by weaving together various regions of
neural tissue devoted to other abilities.
Although many old and recent studies conclude that people
understand what they read on paper more thoroughly than what
they read on screens, the differences are often small. Some
experiments, however, suggest that researchers should look not
just at immediate reading comprehension, but also at long-term
memory. In a 2003 study Kate Garland of the University of
Leicester and her colleagues asked 50 British college students
to read study material from an introductory economics course
either on a computer monitor or in a spiral-bound booklet.
After 20 minutes of reading Garland and her colleagues
quizzed the students with multiple-choice questions. Students
scored equally well regardless of the medium, but differed in
how they remembered the information.
Psychologists distinguish between remembering something
—which is to recall a piece of information along with
contextual details, such as where, when and how one learned it
—and knowing something, which is feeling that something is
true without remembering how one learned the information.
Generally, remembering is a weaker form of memory that is
likely to fade unless it is converted into more stable, long-term
memory that is “known” from then on. When taking the quiz,
volunteers who had read study material on a monitor relied
much more on remembering than on knowing, whereas
students who read on paper depended equally on remembering
and knowing. Garland and her colleagues think that students
who read on paper learned the study material more thoroughly
more quickly; they did not have to spend a lot of time
searching their minds for information from the text, trying to
trigger the right memory—they often just knew the answers.
Additionally, when reading on screens, people seem less
inclined to engage in what psychologists call metacognitive
learning regulation—strategies such as setting specific goals,
rereading difficult sections and checking how much one has
understood along the way. In a 2011 experiment at the
Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, college students took
multiple-choice exams about expository texts either on
computers or on paper. Researchers limited half the volunteers
to a meager seven minutes of study time; the other half could
review the text for as long as they liked. When under pressure
to read quickly, students using computers and paper performed
equally well. When managing their own study time, however,
volunteers using paper scored about 10 percentage points
higher. Presumably, students using paper approached the exam
with a more studious frame of mind than their screen-reading
peers, and more effectively directed their attention and working
memory.
How exactly does the technology we use to read change the
way we read? As digital texts and technologies become more
prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but
are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? Should we
be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink
or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?
Understanding how reading on paper is different from
reading on screens requires some explanation of how the brain
interprets written language. We often think of reading as a
cerebral activity concerned with the abstract—with thoughts
and ideas. As far as our brains are concerned, however, text is a
tangible part of the physical world we inhabit. In fact, the brain
essentially regards letters as physical objects because it does
not really have another way of understanding them. After all,
we did not invent writing until relatively recently in our
evolutionary history. So the human brain improvises a brand-
new circuit for reading by weaving together various regions of
neural tissue devoted to other abilities.
Although many old and recent studies conclude that people
understand what they read on paper more thoroughly than what
they read on screens, the differences are often small. Some
experiments, however, suggest that researchers should look not
just at immediate reading comprehension, but also at long-term
memory. In a 2003 study Kate Garland of the University of
Leicester and her colleagues asked 50 British college students
to read study material from an introductory economics course
either on a computer monitor or in a spiral-bound booklet.
After 20 minutes of reading Garland and her colleagues
quizzed the students with multiple-choice questions. Students
scored equally well regardless of the medium, but differed in
how they remembered the information.
Psychologists distinguish between remembering something
—which is to recall a piece of information along with
contextual details, such as where, when and how one learned it
—and knowing something, which is feeling that something is
true without remembering how one learned the information.
Generally, remembering is a weaker form of memory that is
likely to fade unless it is converted into more stable, long-term
memory that is “known” from then on. When taking the quiz,
volunteers who had read study material on a monitor relied
much more on remembering than on knowing, whereas
students who read on paper depended equally on remembering
and knowing. Garland and her colleagues think that students
who read on paper learned the study material more thoroughly
more quickly; they did not have to spend a lot of time
searching their minds for information from the text, trying to
trigger the right memory—they often just knew the answers.
Additionally, when reading on screens, people seem less
inclined to engage in what psychologists call metacognitive
learning regulation—strategies such as setting specific goals,
rereading difficult sections and checking how much one has
understood along the way. In a 2011 experiment at the
Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, college students took
multiple-choice exams about expository texts either on
computers or on paper. Researchers limited half the volunteers
to a meager seven minutes of study time; the other half could
review the text for as long as they liked. When under pressure
to read quickly, students using computers and paper performed
equally well. When managing their own study time, however,
volunteers using paper scored about 10 percentage points
higher. Presumably, students using paper approached the exam
with a more studious frame of mind than their screen-reading
peers, and more effectively directed their attention and working
memory.