# Do you prefer reading on paper or on a digital screen? ## expand\_more Some feel a strong preference for paper.......some prefer the affordances of digital reading. As collaborative annotation platforms [hypothes.is](https://web.hypothes.is/), [Perusall](https://www.perusall.com/), and [Talis](https://talis.com/talis-elevate/) spread as digital tools for reading, the screen versus paper debate deserves a deeper dive. Maria Konnikova's article in the New Yorker, [Being a better online reader](https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/being-a-better-online-reader), provides good fodder for discussion. ![Konnikova New Yorker article](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/konnikova_article_title.png) Obviously, the flashing ads, temptation of other browser tabs, email and other notifications may require an active ignorance in some of the digital reading we do. I'm curious how New Yorker authors themselves feel about the placement of videos in the middle of their articles…..daring the reader to click away. I assume they hate it as much as the readers, but acquiesce, and see it as a necessary evil for the parent publication to generate more clicks. ![new yorker inline video advertisement](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/dare_you_to_click_away.png) **The Konnikova article was a substrate for a technology that it cited**: collaborative annotation (85 annotations by hypothes.is enthusiasts, 2015-2018; read them by [installing the hypothes.is browser extension](https://web.hypothes.is/help/installing-the-chrome-extension/)). She cited a [2014 article](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514000955%20) ![cras_raids_article_taiwan.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/cras_raids_article_taiwan.png) where students either: 1\) read and annotated on paper followed by face-to-face discussion (control), or 2\) read with an online annotation platform called CRAS-RAIDS (experimental); Collaborative Reading Annotation System with a Reading Annotation and Interactive Discussion Scaffold. Subjects were 5th grade students in Taiwan. The online annotation group had a much higher output in the number of annotations made, a higher output in the category of “reasoning” category annotations, and higher scores on comprehension of the source texts. It appears that the platform encouraged more discussions and collective meaning making, and this led to an increased comprehension. Asynchronous annotation and threaded discussions give the reader time to reflect and search for relevant information before responding. Plus, the responses are all directly anchored to a place in the source text (not the case with discussion forums…..). The design was a between-group comparison – students either annotated online OR annotated on paper, but no student experienced doing both. As such, an individual student may not fully appreciate the approach that they missed. If you want to try annotation in your own classrooms, you can’t go download a CRAS-RAIDS plugin, but you can easily obtain [hypothes.is](https://web.hypothes.is/) or [Perusall](https://www.perusall.com/). The Konnikova article also cites a study that later became a [blockbuster paper in Frontiers in Psychology](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00038/full). Subjects read a short story (“Lusting for Jenny, Inverted” ❤️) on either a Kindle with the page markers/progress marker removed, or on Kindle-sized paper. The paper book was expected to give additional tactile clues for where a reader is when they are consuming its content; one can see/feel the pages as they read, and have a good idea of whether one is in the beginning, middle, or near the end of a paper book. ![frontiers_logo.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/frontiers_logo.png) ![Mangen article](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/mangen_article.png) The paper readers did better at answering time and temporality factual recall questions, and on plot reconstruction. For giving a correct response on where an event occurred in the text, which would also seem to be related to time and temporality recall, there was a large amount of variability in the data collected – larger than the difference in means between paper and Kindle. The paper readers were better than the Kindle readers at recalling events from the first part of the text, but for the second and third parts of the text (presumably dividing the book content into 3rds – beginning, middle and end), it didn’t matter. Effect size is expected to be small here, as the difference in means is small and there is high variance. Again, this was a between-subjects study. A research subject experienced the Kindle or the Kindle-sized paper, but not both. Subjects may have variable dedication to the experimental tasks, which led to noise in the data. One couldn’t ask participants which approach they preferred because they only experienced one approach. Also, Kindles normally come with a % read progress indicator, so they ***tested paper versus a disadvantaged Kindle***. Lastly, is a provocative article entitled: [Fortune favors the bold and italicized: Effects of disfluency on Educational outcomes](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771000226X?via=ihub), which is related the discussion of fatigue that may occur in online reading as we frequently shift screens/colors/layouts/contrasts. In this article, the researchers manipulated font and greyscale, giving students materials in fluent (clear, easily recognizable font), or disfluent (greyed, unusual font) conditions. The disfluent font readers performed better than the fluent font readers on some learning tasks meant to parallel taxonomic learning in a biology class. In a follow-up study, different sections of a highschool class were assigned to a disfluent or control category. The fonts of learning material in the disfluent condition were greyed out, and changed to Haettenschweiler, Monotype Corsiva, or Comic Sans Italicized ![panel of different fonts](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/font_panel.png) or were copied disfluently (by moving the paper up and down during copying). Performance was better in most cases with materials in the disfluent condition. The authors interpret this finding as the disfluent fonts providing a level of “desirable difficulty”, leading presumably to better engagement, then reflected in better test performance. Million dollar question: do the authors of the paper who teach classes, now do so with materials in ![Haettenschweiler font sample](/sites/g/files/omnuum4886/files/annotationforeducation/files/haettenschweiler.png) Somehow, I doubt it ;-)