Most clearly when you are short of time. Delgado and colleagues pooled research from 2000 to 2017 comparing comparable texts read on paper and on digital devices: thirty-eight between-participants studies and sixteen , with a hundred and seventy-one thousand participants. Both designs gave the same advantage of paper, at a of minus 0.21.
Three moderators came out significant, and the first is the interesting one. The paper-based advantage increased in compared with self-paced reading. It was consistent for informational texts, and for mixes of informational and narrative, but not for studies using only . And it has grown over the years rather than shrinking.
With digital reading increasingly dominant, how the medium affects comprehension has become a practical question, and the research answering it has been mixed enough to support any conclusion you liked. Delgado, Vargas, Ackerman and Salmerón set out to settle it by pooling what existed between 2000 and 2017, comparing the reading of comparable texts on paper and on digital devices.
The scale is what makes it useful. Thirty-eight studies with between-participants designs and sixteen with within-participants designs were included, involving a hundred and seventy-one thousand and fifty-five participants in total. Both designs yielded the same advantage of paper over digital reading, at a Hedge’s g of minus 0.21, which is a small effect measured very solidly.
The moderators are where the practical advice lives. Three came out significant. The paper-based reading advantage increased in time-constrained reading compared to self-paced reading. It was consistent across studies using informational texts, or a mix of informational and narrative texts, but not on those using only narrative texts.
The third moderator is the one that unsettles the obvious explanation. The advantage of paper-based reading increased over the years, rather than diminishing as readers grew more used to screens. If the gap were a matter of unfamiliarity it should be closing. One caution: a meta-analysis is only as good as its inputs, which differ in texts, devices and readers, and minus 0.21 is a small average rather than a rule about any one person.
wat. Paper wins by a little, and by more when the clock is running.
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That last moderator is the awkward one. If digital reading were simply unfamiliar, the gap should be closing as people grow up with screens, and the advantage of paper increased over the years instead.
How do we know?
A meta-analysis of research published between 2000 and 2017, comparing reading of comparable texts on paper and on digital devices, with both between-participants and within-participants designs analyzed separately.
What is still unknown
A meta-analysis inherits its studies, which vary in texts, devices and populations. An effect size of minus 0.21 is small, and the result is about comprehension of comparable texts rather than about reading in general.
Learn something?
Where to next
Is a tablet really harder to understand than a printed page?screens
Does a story on an e-reader land less well than one on paper?reading
Why is it so hard to say what color a word is printed in?reading