54 studies with over 1,70,000 people have proven that people learn "more deeply" from reading on paper than from screens.
After all the research, it's conclusively come out that we process print better than we process digital content. And the paper advantage holds across age groups and is only growing with time.
A good question to ask is, why? Why do people gain more from reading on paper? After all, what the digital platforms promise and provide is "more convenience" and "less effort". By all means, all that should have led to digital readers gaining an edge over their paper counterparts. But it doesn't happen. Why?
Because the motto of "more convenience and less effort" is exactly where the problem is. Deep learning doesn't come with "more convenience and less effort", it actually comes with "more effort" in an "optimised, focused setting". And what is an "optimised, focused setting"? It's words written on paper.
A lot of people in this day and age believe that they can learn more by "reducing effort", i.e., by watching videos, hearing podcasts, reading articles on the web, etc. But that's where it goes wrong. Though those "convenient mediums" expose a person to a lot of "information", because all the effort is removed, all what that exposition leads to is akin to a tertiary glance on the subject. There is no "depth", no real knowledge.
Compare that to a focused sitting with a book for 20 hours. It's extremely hard. It's boring. All those static words on paper make one yawn, even sleep every twenty minutes. But by the end of that "Tapasya", what a person comes out with is some serious grasp on the subject. It's real.
Digital is fun. It's easy. Reading on paper is not fun. It's hard.
But what comes easy goes easy. What comes hard, stays much longer.
The whole aspect of "making learning easy" sounds intuitive, but is actually counterproductive. A better strategy is just increasing the effort in focused brackets of time. It leads to magical outcomes.
I personally experienced the benefits of reading on paper when I started my campaign of reading "52 books in a year", back in 2012. I continued with it till 2022. And while I couldn't manage to read 52 in any of those of years, I averaged 40, and that literally changed me as a person. The effects of all that reading was palpable. I could feel the difference in my understanding of things, and soon enough, others could as well.
I only read plain old paperbacks and hard bounds.
During all those years (and years thereafter) I met a lot of people who championed "Kindle" for all its convenience and "portability". They raved about how it enables to read more while they're traveling around the world, even galaxy. And while it may be just a coincidence, not one of those people actually finished a book in five years. Okay, maybe one. But that's about it.
I think in times to come, this will keep getting more and more apparent. And consequently, publications like ET will become super premium. Their readers will have proved that they're worth it.
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