The loss of deep reading: How digital texts impact kids’ comprehension skills
3 years ago by Renneder to c/becomeme
Purely anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure my reading ability has gotten worse since I started using reddit many moons ago. I never used to get distracted every few paragraphs while reading a book or long article. It could just be bog standard cognitive decline from aging, but I'm not THAT old, and I do feel like social media rewires your brain to prefer single-bite information.
Mistake a lot of people make is trying to jump back into reading the big tomes they read as a kid. Shits a muscle gotta build back up. I recommend comics/graphic novels they have pretty pictures and the story has natural stopping points so you can read for like 20 and stop while finishing some story still. Beats just zoning out with tv or reddit.
I liked Transmetropolitan, and Sandman
But a billboard like text, lke "TikTok", something super short and simple, is not the same as a scientific academic paper requiring the effort and skill to find a way to understand concepts and words you did not know before. And keeping it up through several pages.
A friend of mine has a PhD in education focusing on reading, and her summary of the current science is that yes, reading even the same text on a screen vs on paper is associated with poorer retention and comprehension.
@sh.itjust.works
Social Experiment. Become Me. What I see, you see.
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@sh.itjust.works
Social Experiment. Become Me. What I see, you see.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS Digital reading might be adversely affecting kids' reading comprehension skills, a recently published meta-analysis finds. Digital reading does improve comprehension skills, but the beneficial effect is between six and seven times smaller than that of print reading. Digital texts, such as social media chats and blogs, tend to be much shorter and have worse linguistic quality compared to printed works. Phones and computers also expose readers to distractions from social media, YouTube, and video games. The authors recommend that parents and teachers limit kids' time with digital content, or at least emphasize printed works or using basic e-readers with ink screens.
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