What's Wrong with Reading from Digital Mediums?

It is essential for organizations to learn the benefits that reading from screens brings to the students.

FREMONT, CA: There is a substantial widespread in reading from screens, and the query that arises from this is—does the use of electronic devices decrease the comprehension ability. A high rate of inclusion is seen in e-books and supplementary digital materials by the organizations.

Many educators today have incorporated the 1:1 program in the classrooms where each student can access to one individual device, and several schools and college students are also allowed to carry laptops with them. Given the increased number of devices owned and consequently the frequent reading on them, many researchers have conducted a comparative study between reading from electronic sources and paper or books. Several studies pointed out that there is a significant advantage from reading from paper than screens, which benefits the reading comprehension. Moreover, the time taken to read content from the screen and paper has no difference, but the readers execute better with paper.

The benefits of digital reading include:

• Effectiveness: Electronic books are cost-effective for users than regular paper books

• Distribution and accessibility: Digital text compared to paper is easy to distribute and can be accessed from anywhere and at any point in time be it from computers or smartphones.

• Availability: The data is available in one single place, and the reader does not have to go in search of it everywhere, for example, a single device can hold several books or materials.

• Transportation- When it comes to books of different subjects students need to carry each of them separately, which is a lot of work, but digital text works on just one click.

But as the progression in technology takes place where e-textbooks are already replacing textbooks because of their efficiency, schools and colleges also need to find ways to invest in them. Finally, only with increased experience in the field of digital mediums will change the use of paper to screens.