With great power comes great responsibility, so goes the saying, and with digitisation comes great opportunity, too. But, in a world obsessed with clicks and swipes, there is danger in diverting our kids’ attentions from the good, old-fashioned book.
A UNESCO report released late last year expressed concern that excessive screen exposure through school use can contribute to exacerbation of overall health risks.
Between 2012 and 2018, the global rate of adolescent device use increased from 21 to 35 hours per week, but in Aotearoa, it nearly doubled from 22 hours to 42. New Zealand schools also have among the world’s highest use of digital devices in schools, and of course, screen time further increased during and following the Covid-19 pandemic. A US study found that since the pandemic text comprehension skills of 13-year-olds has dropped four points – seven since 2012. Also since 2012, the number of 13-year-olds who reported “never or hardly ever” reading for fun rose from 22% to 31%.
Even parking the pros of having every fact – and cat video – at your fingertips, the benefits of digital learning are plentiful. Screens allow for learning to happen anywhere while also offering a plethora of interactive elements which can be especially beneficial for visual or auditory learners. Customisation means content can be tailored, and non-traditional learning techniques and self-study projects introduced to further a child’s development while also teaching them essential modern-day skills around the likes of photography, videography, and using online maps and apps. Digital books also cost less than physical ones, use less resources, and can be tailored to aid with certain conditions (text can be made larger for those with poor vision, for example, while certain fonts can help those with dyslexia learn easier).
However, a plethora of research shows that children – and adults – tend to retain information better when they read and write on paper. And not only are they more likely to retain the information, but they’re also more likely be better equipped to analyse it, too. Dartmouth researchers found those that learned on computer screens had difficulty understanding abstract concepts when compared to the paper learners, meaning they could, for instance, give you a timeline of certain historical events, but could not tell you why those events happened.
“We weren’t sure what to expect,” Geoff Kaufmann, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, and one of the paper’s co-authors, tells ABC. “Some of our previous work showed that people had a hard time seeing ‘big picture’ information when they did activities on an electronic device compared to paper.”
(The study did, however, show promise for screens to aid in the retention of quick, concrete facts.)
Other studies have revealed that not only are screen readers failing to see the ‘big picture’, they also, perhaps even more worryingly, don’t realise that they’re not getting it.
A recent groundbreaking study by Columbia University examined the brain responses of 59 children aged 10 to 12 years (by kitting them out with hairnets kitted out with electrodes) and found that they were clearly engaged in “deeper reading” when presented with text on paper rather than a screen where “shallow reading was observed”.
But why do brains respond so differently to the two different mediums?
Screens’ blue light, the glow, the distractions of ads, popups, notifications, and hyperlinks all contribute to the detrimental effect, but there may also be something deeper at play. Our brains are wired to respond naturally to sounds – we learn to talk by listening – and reading we find much harder, in part because there is no part of the brain dedicated to it. It is thought that when learning to read, the brain ‘borrows’ from networks that have evolved to carry out tasks like recognition, but rather than recognising faces or danger, it learns to recognise letters and numbers then creates new sets of connections. Some believe that the brain then borrows from this new set of connections again when reading online text, creating a kind of dilution that results in slipping into a skim-reading mode. The skim reading becomes habitual, and breeds overconfidence: the more we skim, the more we think we’re reading, but the less we’re actually taking in.
Research has also shown that when we learn, we create mental maps – like when we’re often able to remember the part of a page where there was a certain quote or fact. This sense of place helps with memory, something which is lost when scrolling endless text on a screen. Even scrolling takes more mental effort than reading a page – eyes chasing the text further reduces focus.
A UNESCO report released late last year expressed concern that excessive screen exposure through school use can contribute to exacerbation of overall health risks. It was also the subject of a study led by AUT student and paediatric physiotherapist Julie Cullen published earlier this year in the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy.
“While digital technologies certainly offer opportunities for learning and other benefits, frequent and extended device use is associated with risk of harm to child and adolescent health and wellbeing,” says Julie. Health problems can include dry eye disease and myopia.
“For issues such as these, what kids are doing on the screen doesn’t make much difference,” she continues. “The impacts don’t really change based on whether a child is playing games, using social media or doing schoolwork.”
Interventions like taking eye breaks, blinking exercises, and regular vision and hearing testing can all help reduce risk so that children can “access technologies and gain essential digital skills” while encouraging “safer screen behaviours in education and home settings”.
While digital tools have their place, paper-based learning offers benefits that simply can’t be replicated on screens. By incorporating paper into their learning routine, kids can develop a deeper understanding of the material, improve their creativity and retention, and enjoy a more engaging and effective learning experience. As with so much in life, it’s all about balance.
