Digital vs. Paper Reading: Which One is Best?
A Kindle lacks a book's tactility, the pages pale and muted with the only sounds of fingernails gently scraping across the screen. There are no creases and markings to a Kindle, the usual hallmarks of a book well-read. And neither can you terrorize a Kindle by doggy-earring the corners, a habit discouraged by the colorful warnings pasted by the librarians. But despite these absences, a Kindle can be of particular advantage in the right hands.
At its surface, digital reading allows greater access to a wider range of books. Recent developments such as the application Libby or Kindle Unlimited make finding and borrowing books just as simple as the touch of a button. When I received my first Kindle as a teen in Portland, Oregon, libraries were not as easy to access as in metropolitan areas like Seoul or New York. In many cases like mine, digital books can bridge the gap between a thirst for reading and the inconveniences of traveling to your nearest Barnes and Noble.
What’s more, the features of digital books allow for greater accessibility. For instance, the Kindle Paperwhite has a function called Open Dyslexic, which allows for users who suffer from dyslexia to read more easily, an option rarely available for books on paper. Individuals with bad eyesight can easily change the font of the text to accommodate their needs, and brightness can be easily adjusted. Simply put, digital reading simply puts an entire library at the palm of your grasp.
However, parents persist in defaming the Kindle’s good name, which begs us to wonder the accuracy of their libel. One common and justified gripe with digital reading is the falloff in reading comprehension, which is true to a considerable extent. A research study done by Pablo Delgado et al, a researcher for the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology in the University of Valencia, demonstrated that digital reading can “prevent readers from fully benefiting from their reading comprehension abilities and keep children from developing these skills in the first place.” Other studies, by Igor Peras et al, echo similar findings, where better reading comprehension was displayed on paper books than on digital books.
But in spite of these findings, many still find themselves gravitating towards digital reading, and rightfully so. While reading on a screen may pose benefits on comprehension, these factors are overshadowed by the features of digital reading. Although some may find the tradeoff to be simple comprehension for convenience, it is so much more.