--- title: "Do we absorb information better on paper, rather than screens?" description: "Reading is arguably the most difficult task one must learn, requiring both formal education and practice. What does the science of reading say about the possible consequences of reading on digital devices versus books?" type: "NewsArticle" publisher: "Daily Maverick" site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za" section: "THE CONVERSATION" authors: - name: "Erik D Reichle" url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/erik-d-reichle/" - name: "Lili Yu" url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/lili-yu/" canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-05-18-do-we-absorb-information-better-on-paper-rather-than-screens/" published: "2026-05-18T15:00:00" updated: "2026-05-19T12:41:03" lang: "en-ZA" word_count: 881 --- # Do we absorb information better on paper, rather than screens? > Reading is arguably the most difficult task one must learn, requiring both formal education and practice. What does the science of reading say about the possible consequences of reading on digital devices versus books? By Erik D Reichle and Lili Yu · Published 18 May 2026, 17:00 SAST · Updated 19 May 2026, 14:41 SAST ## Key points - The Swedish government is returning to physical books in classrooms, citing concerns over screen time and declining test scores. - Reading is a complex skill with physiological constraints that affect comprehension, particularly when distractions are present. - Digital reading can impact learning, especially for children, due to distractions and the development of potentially harmful reading strategies. - As digital education rises post-pandemic, understanding the long-term effects of digital versus paper reading is crucial for educational outcomes. ## Content The Swedish government recently announced it was moving from the classroom use of digital devices [back to physical books](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly0vk77vdko). It cited concerns over declining test scores and increasing screen time. Are these concerns well founded? And what does the science of reading say about the possible consequences of reading on digital devices versus books? To address these questions, it’s worth remembering that, although reading might appear to be an easy task, this impression is false. Reading is arguably the most difficult task one must learn – one that requires years of formal education and practice to master. In contrast to spoken language, it is a skill we are not biologically predisposed to learn. ### Why is reading so difficult? To understand why reading is difficult, one must first understand the physiology of reading. As you are reading this sentence, your eyes are making a series of rapid movements, called [saccades](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/saccade), from one word to the next. During these saccades, the processing of visual information is suppressed and is only available during brief intervals, called fixations, when the eyes are stationary. Experiments that measure readers’ eye movements [have shown](https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001295) we fixate most words because our capacity to extract visual information during each fixation is extremely limited. In languages like English that are read from left to right, our capacity to perceive the features that distinguish letters is limited to a small region of the visual field called the perceptual span. This span extends from 2-3 letter spaces to the left of fixation to 8-12 letter spaces to the right of fixation. The span’s asymmetry reflects the movement of attention through the text. It extends to the left in languages like Arabic, which are read from right to left. The size of the span is smaller for dense writing systems, such as Chinese. We also know from eye-tracking and brain-imaging [experiments](https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00361) that words require time to identify. Our best estimates suggest visual information requires 60 [milliseconds](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/millisecond) to propagate from the eyes to the brain and words then require an additional 100-300 milliseconds to identify. (A millisecond is one-thousandth of a second). These constraints limit the maximum rate of reading to 300-400 words per minute, depending on the difficulty of the text and one’s level of comprehension. [Read more Debunking ‘zombie theories’: Learning myths persist despite science proving otherwise April 27, 2026 ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Ip5ml9omtGREa9gkxDQr6o44YwQ=/450x0/smart/file/attachments/2991/side-view-boy-wearing-virtual-reality-headset-holding-books-scaled-1768430620985_548828.jpg)](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-04-27-debunking-zombie-theories-learning-myths-persist-despite-science-proving-otherwise/) Speed-reading [advocates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOp9KAXgOOU), who falsely promise faster reading speeds, teach you how to skim a text. Comprehension declines at a rate inversely proportional to the gain in speed. Importantly, the upper limit for reading speed requires years of practice to attain, because it requires the brain systems that support vision, attention, word identification, language processing and eye movements to operate in a highly coordinated manner. Anything that prevents this coordination will therefore reduce comprehension. ### Consequences of digital reading So what are the likely consequences of digital reading? With some devices, such as e-readers, there is [little reason to suspect](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2023.08.002) digital reading differs from the reading of books, because both formats support the mental processes required for skilled reading. The more questionable devices are those introducing distractions (such as news websites interspersed with ads) or which have suboptimal formatting, such as centre-justified text with large or unequal-sized gaps between words. The latter is rarely a feature of paper-based texts. Although the consequences of these two factors are under-researched, enough has been learned about human cognition to make informed predictions. For example, images and audio unrelated to a text such as pop-up ads can capture attention. Although most adults have developed a level of executive control sufficient to ignore such distractions, young children have not. The implications for a child who is struggling to understand the meaning of a text are obvious. Their comprehension will suffer to the extent that additional effort is required to ignore distractions, or if they do not yet have the mental coordination to understand the text has been disrupted. [Read more It's not screen time that matters, it’s what you do and when you do it October 28, 2025 ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/948gOB_ZrD6WtuJ0lwqcJkVHmG4=/450x0/smart/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/screen-time-phone.jpg)](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-10-28-its-not-screen-time-that-matters-its-what-you-do-and-when-you-do-it/) There is also evidence from [eye-tracking experiments](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.%20pone.0263669) that many digital environments, such as webpages, can induce specific reading strategies, such as skimming for gist or searching for information. Although such strategies might be adaptive in some contexts, they reduce overall comprehension. This possibility should be especially concerning for children, because years of practice are needed to coordinate the mental systems that support adult levels of reading skill. Daily Maverick Connect Screens vs. books: how should our children learn? [VOTE HERE](https://connect.dailymaverick.co.za/t/screens-vs-books-how-should-our-children-learn/3771?utm_source) Such concerns have recently drawn more attention, because the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic caused a shift to online education and a marked increase in digital reading. Although these changes were motivated by practical necessity, their long-term consequences remain unclear. So far, eye-tracking research has been carried out on computer screens. New technology is becoming available which will allow us to directly compare eye movements and comprehension between digital devices and paper. This should give us more clarity about the benefits versus costs of digital devices. Given reading ability is [predictive](https://www.cfey.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-relationship-between-reading-age-education-and-life-outcomes.pdf) of one’s education, socioeconomic status and wellbeing, the importance of assessing the long-term consequences of digital reading cannot be overstated. **DM** [Media](https://counter.theconversation.com/content/281849/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced)*This article is republished from [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/) under a Creative Commons license. Read the [original article](https://theconversation.com/do-we-absorb-information-better-on-paper-rather-than-screens-it-depends-on-the-screen-281849).*