Reading in Print Sinks in Better

You might be better off printing these next few paragraphs before you read them. A new meta study out of the University of Valencia found that reading for fun on screens yields far less comprehension than when it's on the printed page, the Guardian reports. This is because our "reading mindset" is shallower on devices, and deeper when perusing printed materials. "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," said study co-authors Cristina Vargas and Ladislao Salmerón, per Axios.

The study examined data from 25 published papers that analyzed reading in nearly 470,000 people over the past two decades. They learned that we don't just retain books or longer texts better in print when we read for leisure—the same holds true when we're scanning a Wikipedia page. "We expected that digital leisure reading for informational purposes, such as visiting Wikipedia or other educational webpages, or reading the news, would be much more positively linked to comprehension," said another co-author, Lidia Altamura, per Phys.org. "But even that was not the case." They believe that distraction on digital devices, like an incoming text message or email, is one reason we're apt to read more casually on them. A wide variety of content quality on the internet is another.

An important takeaway from the analysis was that younger readers had more negative associations when reading digitally, and this improved with age (in high school through college). This could make a big impact in the classroom, where reading programs are often online, and thousands of books are available on tablets and computers. The researchers suggested encouraging elementary school kids to read more in print. "Based on our results, we cannot just assume that all leisure reading will be beneficial for developing readers," said Altamura. "The medium used matters." (Reading out loud can help us remember things better, too).