Study: Reading Is More Effective Than Viewing or Listening to Content

Photo Credit: UBC Learning Commons on VisualHunt

The global pandemic forced schools and students to switch completely or partly to digital learning. The question remains whether the practice should continue after the pandemic. Is viewing or listening to content just as good as reading the printed word? A new research says no.

 Reading and learning long texts is generally more successful using printed paper than onscreen, according to researcher Naomi S. Baron, author of the book, “How We Read: Strategic Choices for Print, Screen, and Audio.”

 People retain more of what they read than what they listen to or watch, according to Baron. The benefits of the written or printed word are especially significant when it comes to mental abstraction, drawing inferences, and remembering details. Both high school and college students considered reading on paper as better for concentration and learning than reading on electronic device.

 Baron, a professor of linguistics emerita at American University, and her colleagues surveyed 429 university students in five countries about their reading practices. A vast majority (92 percent) said they focused best when reading printed materials. Results of the study, which was the basis of Baron’s book, were published in Telematics and Informatics.

 Why Print is Better

In an article for The Conversation, Baron said paper’s physical properties enhance “visual geography” of specific pages. Readers often link their memory of what they’ve read to how far into the book or the page they were.

More importantly, readers approach digital reading the same way they approach social media: casually. With this kind of mindset, they devote less mental effort. But they read printed materials more seriously.

“Collective research shows that digital media have common features and user practices that constrain learning. These include diminished concentration, an entertainment mindset, a propensity to multitask, lack of a fixed physical reference point, reduced use of annotation, and less frequent reviewing of what has been read, heard or viewed,” wrote Baron.

Bottom line: audio, video, and print materials all play an important role in learning and education. Just don’t assume that they are equally effective or interchangeable even when the content is identical.

Read Baron’s article:

Why We Remember More by Reading—Especially Print—Than From Audio or Video

Read a story about another research:

Study: Literary Fiction Offers Value in the Workplace By Developing Employees’ EQ

Photo Credit: UBC Learning Commons on VisualHunt