Digital devices have emerged as an alternative to reading on paper, it is not uncommon to see people reading on the street using a mobile phone, tablet or reader, however, despite the facilities offered by this type of devices, such as the integration of various functions, the printed format remains preferred by most readers.
What is the reason for this preference for paper reading?One of the causes is the ease of understanding the texts. Reading paper text seems to make it easier to understand when it comes to reading in a digital medium. Digital media is an inconvenience to understanding texts, but where does this inconvenience come from?
- Many people have predicted the death of paper books.
- Yet the passage of time has defmented this claim.
- Although their use has declined.
- Printed books remain favorites.
- Print is preferred to in-depth reading.
- Even by people who spend most of their reading time on digital media.
This is because we have a better understanding of what we read when reading on paper, especially when we have little time to read, in addition to what one would intuitively have, it seems that new generations understand more accurately when comparing paper reading. reading in a digital medium.
It has been found that when people who read on paper compared to those they read in a digital medium are evaluated, the former get better results; it has also been found that those who read in a digital medium overestimate their level of learning. In words, they imagine that their level of learning will be higher than it really is.
The explanation of the benefits of reading on paper on digital reading is due to a deficit in metacognitive processes, in particular a deficit in the metacognitive processes responsible for monitoring the quantity and quality of the learnings carried out, that is, what we think. cognitive resources that will be needed to learn.
Therefore, when reading in a digital medium, we make more distant estimates of reality to determine the cognitive resources we need.
The same results mentioned in the previous section were found when reading time was limited. Therefore, when there was a time limit, both estimation and learning were more important when read on paper than when read in digital media. This allowed us to conclude that in fact the cause is a metacognitive deficit.
In short, it is easier to learn by reading paper texts than by reading texts on screen, the cause is the difficulty of metacognitive follow-up, which leads to greater overestimation of learning and leads the student to insufficient attribution of cognitive knowledge. In short, reading about digital media leads us to think it’s easier than it looks, and we allocate fewer cognitive resources than we really need.
On the other hand, digital media promotes more superficial processing of information, negatively affecting reading and learning. Perhaps the use of digital media for quick and hasty interactions will lead us to repeat it when we read.
It doesn’t end there, because taking notes by hand is more efficient than writing on the computer. Handwritten notes tend to be more elaborate and get better test results.
These results have important implications for education. Introducing digital technology in classrooms can reduce or hinder learning. Perhaps before choosing the technology directly for its benefits, we should consider the negative effects to better evaluate the changes.