It’s five year since why people read less online than with printwas posted:

People spend less time reading online news than reading printed newspapers because reading a screen is more mentally and physically taxing.

Last week The Guardian reported on similar research in Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper.

The story says researchers at Norway’s Stavanger University asked people to read the same short story on a Kindle and on paper.

Those who read on paper did a better job of remembering the events than those who read on a Kindle.

A similar study looked at a school student comprehension test which showed those who read the paper document performed better than those who read digitally.

None of this surprises me, it mirrors my experience. I’ve noticed I get more from reading print than digitally. Also my eyes tire much slower with print.

If I have a serious editing or sub-editing job to do, I’ve learnt that proofreading a printed document is more accurate than working directly onscreen.

Knowing readers absorb less with digital books is unlikely to change anything. In theory nothing is likely to stop the world moving from print to pixels although publishers have plenty of scope to screw up. Yet, that aside, with e-books there’s a danger we’ll know more and understand less.

The frustrations with the format go beyond economics. While the initial debate was about the ‘ebook price swindle’, we are now finding that the proprietary nature of these files also makes deep reading and comprehension significantly harder.