Advantages of Print Reading over Screen Reading: A Comparison of Visual Patterns, Reading Performance, and Reading Attitudes across Paper, Computers, and Tablets

ABSTRACT

We examined the effects of the reading medium (print vs. digital) on readers’ visual patterns, reading performance, and reading attitudes. Two within-subject experiments were conducted with 74 readers, who read articles using three reading media: print, computer, and tablet. The experimental results showed that in terms of visual patterns, readers exhibited a shorter fixation duration and a higher fixation count during print reading than during screen reading; reading performance, as measured on the basis of reading comprehension and reading time, was equivalent across all three media; however, in terms of reading attitude, readers reported higher levels of perceived understanding, perceived confidence, and perceived immersion and lower levels of perceived fatigue for reading printed text than reading from a device screen. Therefore, the performance gap between print and screen reading is narrowing. However, printed text may still be the preferred mode of reading, as demonstrated by the readers’ preferences.

Disclosure of potential conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) under Grant number 2017R1D1A1B03034511.

Notes on contributors

You Jin Jeong

You Jin Jeong received the MS degree in engineering from the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, Seoul National University. Her research interests include mass media communication, human-computer interaction, technology adoption, and device usage.

Gahgene Gweon

Gahgene Gweon is an associate professor at Seoul National University. She received the BA degree in computer science and economics from the University of California, Berkeley. She received the MS and Ph.D. degrees in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include human-computer interaction, learning science, and natural language processing.