If you’re like most people, you do a lot of your reading online or via a Kindle these days. And, like most people, you may have noticed your memory and comprehension for what you’ve read diminishing.
This leads to an interesting question: Do digital books harm our learning compared to hardcopy books?
The short answer: Yes.
The long answer: It depends on your ultimate intention.
Space: The Hidden Dimension
Within the brain, the hippocampus is our gateway to memory. Essentially, all new information must pass through this neural structure to be converted into long-term memory.Lining the hippocampus are millions of tiny structures called place cells. These cells continuously and subconsciously encode both the spatial layout of whatever objects we are interacting with and our physical relationship to those objects. For instance, if I were to place you in a maze, place cells would not only map out the global pattern of the maze, but also your unique location within that pattern as you walked through the maze.
This means spatial layout is an integral aspect of all newly formed memories.
Chances are you’ve never explicitly memorized the location of your stapler, mug, and other items on your desk, but if someone were to unexpectedly re-arrange these items, you’d immediately recognize something is amiss. This is spatial layout in action.
Digital vs. Print
When reading short passages (three pages or less), there does not appear to be any difference between print and digital: People learn equally from both mediums. However, once reading passages stretch beyond three pages, then print almost always outperforms digital.Print ensures material is in an unchanging and everlasting three-dimensional location. This is why, even though we rarely consciously focus on the spatial organization of paragraphs, many can recall that a particular passage is “about half-way through the book on the bottom, right-hand page.” This unvarying location is embedded within our memory and can be used to help trigger relevant content in the future.
Unfortunately, digital mediums have neither an unchanging nor everlasting spatial organization. When reading a PDF document, words will begin at the bottom of the screen, move to the middle, then disappear out the top. Without a fixed physical location, we lose this component of memory and cannot draw upon spatial organization as a cue to recall content in the future (leaving us at a distinct disadvantage to those who can).
Modern e-readers have addressed this by allowing users to “flip” between pages (rather than scroll through them). Although a step in the right direction, this still omits the important third dimension of depth which allows for the unambiguous triangulation of information.
So Now Then…
Print trumps digital when it comes to memory formation. However, this does not mean digital tools are useless.If memory is not the primary outcome (for instance, if you are more interested in engagement or interactivity), then digital tools offer unique features print could never match. Resizing, re-coloring, and repositioning of text: These digital features can greatly assist readers with visual and/or attention impairments. Additionally, digital tools allow for easy content search, hyperlinking, and quizzing—features which can drive curiosity and engagement.
As such, the secret is to clarify and explicate the learning outcomes you desire. Once you’re clear on specific task intentions, then you can select the tool best suited to that end.
