As a team of educational neuroscience researchers, Karen Froud, Lisa Levinson, Chaille Maddox, and Paul Smith explore the intricate workings of the brain. Among them, they have decades of experience in experimental neuroscience investigating the brain, language, and literacy. Their work is conducted in the Neurocognition of Language Lab, a brain imaging research facility in the Department of Biobehavioral Sciences at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. Dr. Froud is the lab director and associate professor of neuroscience and education. Dr. Levinson is a lecturer and senior research scientist in the lab. Dr. Maddox is a senior research associate, and Smith is a Ph.D. student and lab manager. Shively is a freelance journalist and producer who provided editorial support for this article. We asked the team to share their recent findings on the neurological differences in children when reading in print vs. on a digital screen, and the implications for early literacy.
In a recent study published in PLOS ONE, our team investigated brain-level differences in children when reading in print vs. on a digital screen. Our study was the first to use Event-Related Potentials, a way of measuring brain activity, to see how children responded to the relatedness of words in a passage of text. Our findings suggested that reading from a page leads to deeper engagement with the text's meaning than reading from a screen. As the debate over print vs. digital reading continues, our study offers new insights into how the reading medium can influence engagement with text.
Our study participants were middle-schoolers, ages 10–12 years, all reading on grade level. We developed tightly controlled text passages that matched one another on sentence structure and length, complexity of ideas, vocabulary, number of concepts, and more.
During the study, we monitored the children’s brain activity as they read these passages either on a screen or in print. After each passage, we presented them with words and asked them to indicate whether each one was related or unrelated to what they had just read. This task allowed us to evaluate how well the children's brains had formed meaning networks for the text. Words varied in their relation to the text: some were closely related (like the word contest appearing after a passage about chess); some were completely unrelated (like the word shade after that same passage). We were most interested in how readers’ brains would handle in-between words that were sort of related (like club or score after reading about chess—these are words where you can see a connection, but perhaps not immediately).
Previous research has shown that the brain activates meaning networks when processing language, which can be observed if we measure the electrical activity that the brain generates as it works. Shifts in this electrical activity tell us how the brain handles different tasks; some of these shifts are so characteristic of brainwaves during particular tasks that they have been given names. One such example is the N400, which is a brainwave that looks larger when a word is unexpected, and smaller when it fits well into context. Our study aimed to determine whether words that were moderately related to the text could still be integrated into meaning networks effectively, indicating deeper engagement with the text.
Given past findings suggesting deeper engagement with printed text compared to digital screens, we predicted that the N400 responses would reflect deeper processing when reading from paper and shallower processing when reading digitally. And indeed, our results showed that after reading on screen, the N400 pattern indicated shallower processing. In contrast, after reading from print, the N400 pattern suggested deeper engagement with the texts.
These findings provide new scientific evidence that our brains process information differently depending on whether we read from paper or screens. Reading from paper seems to encourage deeper understanding and more robust encoding of meanings, compared to reading digitally.
So, should we throw our screens away?
We’d argue not. Although deep encoding of information is valuable, it’s not always what is needed. In today’s age of information overload, children need to be prepared to selectively and flexibly dig deeply into some texts and commit parts to memory. But with other texts, they might need to engage in quick, shallow reading to identify themes, determine relevance, and evaluate whether more attention is warranted. These different skills could be relevant for different mediums.
In addition, our study was only the first of many that need doing. On screens, children can usually change font size, contrast, click on links, engage with text in new ways. Does this greater interactivity compensate for the indices of shallower processing that showed up in our study? We need to investigate that! Screens might be helpful for students with reading difficulties, or with attention problems, because they offer that kind of adaptability.
We also only looked at informational text processing—but are kids more engaged when the material they are reading is more highly motivating?
Even more than this, the ubiquity of screens in our children’s lives can support equitable access to information in a way that’s never been known before. Exposure to diverse texts and opportunities to read are crucial for children’s development, regardless of the medium. Still, knowing that different mediums are best suited for different kinds of tasks can help educators and parents to be mindful and selective about when print or screens are most appropriate.
Brain science is only starting to yield insights about how the medium of text presentation matters. Given our findings, and hopefully more work to come, publishers of children’s books might consider emphasizing the benefits of print books for deeper cognitive engagement, while also exploring hybrid formats and tailoring content to build on the strengths of both print and digital mediums. Understanding the differences between children’s interactions with texts on different platforms can guide more effective and engaging content creation.
