Have you ever felt like while on the Internet you couldn’t understand what you were reading? Was it hard to keep your focus on the page? Did your eyes feel heavy and weak? These are all the side effects of reading online. This is not someone made up stat or a doctor’s opinion, it is facts. Continuous studies have proven that reading online can be harmful to you in many ways. You are hurting your own skills without even knowing it, and it can be detrimental to your future comprehension development. Reading from actual text helps us in many ways. It is easy on the eyes, easier to comprehend and follow with a physical copy, and by simply having the book in your hand you reduce your chance of losing concentration while reading. Reading from a physical copy of a book or magazine is more effective and efficient than reading from a online source because it easier to comprehend, it’s not harmful for your eyes and most importantly you can keep your concentration better with a physical copy in hand.
To continue, I have always believed that reading from a book made me feel like more accomplished when it comes to reading, turns out that not only did it give me a sense of gratitude, but it was actually better for me than reading online. A study conducted a Stavanger University was featured in a article called “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens” stated that, “Anne Mangen’s colleagues asked 72 10th-grade students of similar reading ability to study one narrative and one expository text, each about 1,500 words in length. Half the students read the texts on paper and half read them in pdf files on computers with 15-inch liquid-crystal display (LCD) monitors. Afterward, students completed reading-comprehension tests consisting of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, during which they had access to the texts. Students who read the texts on computers performed a little worse than students who read on paper” (Jabr). This just proves that reading from a physical copy is a direct correlation to success when it comes to recalling what you have read, which is usually something you are asked to do. In essence, this example just further supports the face that reading from a book or physical paper is more effective when it comes to comprehension and understand of the material itself. You should seriously consider using only books or magazines when it comes to graded assignments you need to recall at a later date.
All things considered, in an age of technology and electronics, conventional wisdom may still have its moment to shine when it comes to reading the old fashion way. In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, the author uses an example from a pathologist from the University of Michigan Medical and he says “A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a ‘staccato’ quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. ‘I can’t read War and Peace anymore,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it” (Carr). Friedman is another victim of the flaw in concentration when it comes to reading on the Internet. Many of us do exactly what Friedman does, we skim. Skimming leads to not grasping the material and we are half focused when we skim. The internet causes us to have bad reading habits and actually shortens our attention span, which is exactly the case when it comes to Friedman. Good thing we have a solution to all of this, we need to start reading paper copies of the most important things. While it may be okay to get our news from the internet, things that are school are work related need to be on paper, this way we can concentrate on what read as well as understand what we have read.
No doubt, the world we live in is evolving to a technology based only system. Businesses are doing records only digitally, schools are buying laptops for their students, and even our grandparents are getting smartphones. Just because everyone else is doing it, why does that mean we have to do it? It is proven facts that reading from the page is better for you so why not combine both. We should use technology to test, but for research we rea from actual text. This way the majority of the information we retain is from the paper itself, and we will only use the technology to be more efficient testing wise. It’s the best of both worlds, but we really need to stick to the paper over the screens.
Furthermore, in my own life I have experienced the effects of the internet on not only comprehension skills or concentration, but on my eyes and mind itself. I used to constantly get e-books for my work and school assignments and I started to realize a trend. I would become more tired and my eyes would become more heavy after reading on the computer compared to reading my assignments on my paper. I could honestly feel my eyes start to strain and become watery just minutes after I started looking at the screens. This was really eye opening for me and I began to print the things I needed to read for school. This is not a coincidence though, it’s a proven fact that reading online effects your eyes directly. Another quote from the article “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens,” says that “So the human brain improvises a brand-new circuit for reading by weaving together various regions of neural tissue devoted to other abilities, such as spoken language, motor coordination and vision” (Jabr). This quote refers to the fact that when we are in front of the screens our eyes begin to jumble words together and our vision becomes strained. It affects all aspects that we need to be a successful reader, and that’s a recipe for failure.
As a result, it is clearly evident how reading on paper is way better for students than reading from the internet. For the future of education to comprehend better, concentrate more efficiently, and are less likely to strain your eyes and mind. On the contrary, students shouldn’t just not read from the internet at all. We need to pick your spots when it comes to that, don’t read lengthy articles or articles that you need to recall or will be tested on. If we have to read from the internet for school, print the article or passage that you are being asked to work with. Otherwise news and short articles are okay to read online, but just be cautious. So next time you are reading a lengthy article online for school, don’t. Print that article because in the end reading on paper will only help you in the end.
