Online reading differs from reading on paper. You won’t read much beyond the first paragraph of this article if you follow the usual online reading pattern. In fact, I’ve violated all the tenants of online post-forging. I’ve forgone headings, images, and even small paragraphs to illustrate my point. Screen reading requires more complex reading skills than paper-based reading (Liu, 2018). Yet, quality of your reading performance remains below that of paper-based reading, at least when it comes to reading for depth and information (Liu, 2018, Clinton, 2019). Fortunately, the same studies prove screen reading for pleasure, such as reading an e-novel, is fine. There’s no drop in performance. Novels are designed to be less demanding on your cognitive abilities than reading for learning. Of course, this isn’t to say novels lack depth. In fact, stories remain the best method for learning. However, for most of us modern readers, nonfiction acts as the main learning method, and that method demands more focus and word-decoding skills (Liu, 2018):
Word-decoding skills that lead to word- or sentence-level comprehension depend on linguistic abilities and semantic skills, such as orthographic, phonological, and morphological coding abilities, knowledge of word meanings, and syntactic ability.
The problem with screen reading, at least online reading like here on JP, resides with focus. Online reading, by its nature, teems with distractions. When you encounter a hyperlink, you have to decide to click on it or not. Images distract, even as they give the eyes a place to rest: “Reading text and images on screen vs paper may be different because of the splitting of attention between verbal and visual information as well as combining the different modalities (Clinton, 2019).” You also have notifications wanting your attention, and the design of the web browser distracts. The address bar invites you to move to the next website. The start menu, task bar, and other user interface features sit in the periphery: more quiet distractions. All of which damage our ability to process the text and add the information to our individual contexts. In other words, distractions prevent us from building meaning from the text (Coiro, 2011). And what is more distracting than the Internet? After all, advertisements teem. GIFs dance and move. Videos autoplay. You have popups, accordion text, slideshows, hyperlinks, call-to-actions, buttons, and all the other interactivity widgets that demand attention. Is it any wonder we can’t focus on text even inside a paper book? Social media feeds and all the rest prime our brains to focus for just a few seconds at a time before flitting to the next shining, buzzing, enticing new thing.
All of this processing deludes us into believing we are comprehending what we are trying to read. Screen readers overestimate their reading performance while understanding less and remembering less than they believe (Clinton, 2019). Whereas, paper-reading, because it doesn’t distract, has better rates of retention and understanding. I suspect the overestimation links to the use of energy. All those distractions make you believe you are focusing because that mental energy has disappeared. But the return on that energy is less than relatively distraction-free paper-reading. This only applies to reading for learning, however. Reading for fun or for stories is not effected by the screen (Clinton, 2019). For stories, digital books and screen reading offers lower costs and better access. You can carry an entire library on your phone or e-reader. But people report feeling less engaged than with a physical book. The act of reading isn’t as pleasant, and eye strain is a problem. Of course, these readers often started as paper readers, so some bias and nostalgia may be in these data. A good e-reader won’t strain your eyes any more than a paper page would. I couldn’t find data on how manga translates to the screen from the page. I suspect manga won’t suffer from screen reading for several reasons. First, manga focuses more on images than text. Manga sits between prose and film, pulling reading methods from both. The frame-by-frame reading style encourages fast image processing, and the division of manga into frames works against distraction. You can return to the work with a glance. Manga can also benefit from screens. Printed manga keeps color to a minimum to keep costs down. Screen reading doesn’t have the same cost concern. Manga moving to screens may allow it to flourish with color and other changes, such as frame-by-frame reading–when a full page view isn’t necessary. Manga’s heavy reliance on images for storytelling and the fact it is similar to reading a novel helps protect it from the problems screen-reading informational sources have.
So is reading on a screen good? It depends. For casual pleasure reading–fiction and nonfiction and manga–screen reading appears superior to paper-reading. You have access to more works and comprehension doesn’t suffer from distractions. But if you are reading to learn, paper is your best choice. However, you can reduce the effects of screen reading using think-aloud reading strategy (Coiro, 2011):
Over time, think-aloud strategy lessons in online reading environments help students recognize, label, and talk about a range of more and less familiar online cueing systems that are useful for particular reading purposes. In turn, students begin to actively apply additional reading and thinking strategies for effectively comprehending and using the range of informational texts they encounter on the Internet.
Think-aloud strategies involve asking yourself questions as you read the text and checking to see if you truly understand what is being said. Sometimes this means you retell the idea using a story and check it against the text again. The main point is to retain focus and to test your understanding. While these strategies can help with paper-based reading, the method helps you mitigate the problems screens impose.
If you have waded through these blocks of text: congratulations! You proved the title of the post wrong, but do you remember everything you read? Do you understand the main point and why I opted to avoid images, headings, short paragraphs, and the other requirements of good online “reading.” Have you overestimated your understanding of this post? Or did you scan the page and land on this paragraph? Online reading offers a mix of positives and negatives that really depend on your reason for reading. E-books are great, but paper-books remain better for some applications. As long as you are reading, pick whichever works for you, understanding the benefits and detriments of both mediums. Remember too that books offer the best, condensed form of information in the world. According to Steven Kotler’s (2021) estimates of his writing, reading a blog post takes about 3 minutes which gets you 3 days of his life. I confirm this. Some of my blog posts take even longer to research and write. Reading a magazine article, which takes about 20 minutes, nets you about 4 months of research. Reading a book, which Kotler estimates between 5-8 hours, depending on the book, gives you around 15 years or more of knowledge. Videos and podcasts offer a return on investment ranging from blog posts to magazines. They don’t approach the level of books. Books, in all their forms, offer the densest form of knowledge in exchange for your time.
References
Clinton, Virginia (2019) Reading from paper compared to screens: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Research Reading 42 (2) 288-325.
Coiro, Julie (2011.) Talking about reading as thinking: modeling the hidden complexities of online reading comprehension. Theory into Practice. 50: 107-115.
Kotler, Steven (2021) The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer. Harper Wave.
Liu, I-Fang, Ko, Hwa-Wei (2018) Roles of paper-based reading ability and ICT-related skills in online reading performance. Reading and Writing. 32:1017-1059.
Curiously, I think think the number of “followers” can inversely correlate to the amount of time (and effort) individuals put into the actual reading and comprehension of certain types of online articles. Computers are, by nature, a convenience. But humans will also tend to fill empty spaces, so that the convenience of a technology becomes offset by volume, diluting individual messages. The long hours with chisels and saws that result in fine joinery are replaced by Ikea and an air-nailer.
I follow this because I find the subject matter personally interesting, unusually well-researched and touching on some subjects that few others address. And, I still appreciate handmade furniture.
Some of the largest article websites are dominated by listicles instead of full-content, supporting your point. And then there is social media which is dominated by images and tweets. Neither leave room for nuance or thinking.
Some of my favorite online long-reads are from Aeon and Psyche. Those two sites value the long-form (even though they have hyperlinks inserted and such) and reading to learn.
Regarding manga, I read In/Spectre via my library e-reader recently and there was way too much text for me to take. I did find out that it’s based off a very notable novel in Japan. The manga translated the literary aspect of the novel well to make it engaging, but it’s something I wouldn’t re-read unless it was the printed edition.
I do think physical books have a lot of value. Physical manga sales are doing well despite the proliferation of digital manga versions. Reading everything on screen is annoying sometimes. When I read manga online, I do my best to avoid distractions.
Does manga screen readability depend on the art style and writing?
More of the writing. Sometimes, manga text bubbles have certain lines in small text that’s much easier to see in print. Though it’s more of the text outside of the bubbles. When certain characters have “extended” thoughts, they are usually very small and outside of the usual text bubbles.