In this digital age, it’s not surprising that many of us tend to read a lot online. Some people prefer to read entire novels their screens. However, when you’re reading on a phone, your attention is pulled into a thousand directions – your notifications, messages, the time, etc – and your mind is never fully on the content. A physical book, however, commands your full attention; you feel its weight in your hands, you physically turn the pages. It’s no surprise that people tend to retain more information when reading from a physical book.
Many people understand the benefits of reading from physical books – for one, you can scribble notes and easily flip pages back and forth. Ever since the advent of e-readers, a lot of research has been done to understand what different styles of reading can do to your brain.
The brain mapping your book
When you read a physical book, your brain actually treats it like a landscape. It builds a spatial map of the text, the same way your brain subconsciously maps malls, lecture halls, and campus blocks. However, when you scroll on a phone, that map can’t form in your head.
A 2024 follow-up of 49 studies confirmed that people understand less on screens. The gap has grown steadily every year since 2001. Being a “digital native” doesn’t help. The best explanation is how your brain tracks where you are. Your short-term memory can only juggle about 7 things at once. A physical book gives you constant location cues: the weight shifting from right hand to left, where a paragraph sits on the page, how thick the remaining pages feel.
Many X users related to @LPNewBrunswick: “I find it interesting that with many books, I can tell you where on the page a specific reference is – like ‘Joe opens the door triggering the bomb bottom-third of the left-side page, then responders arrive mid-sentence break between the left and flipping to right-side top page.'”
Your brain hands off the “where am I in this text?” job to those physical signals, leaving more room for actually understanding what you’re reading. On a phone, every screen looks identical. Your brain has to track position and process meaning at the same time, and something gives.
A Norwegian eye-tracking study analysing over 25,000 individual eye movements found screen readers processed text more shallowly. The participants had no idea they were reading differently.
Paper reading and brain waves
A 2023 study in PLOS ONE attached brain-activity sensors to children’s heads while they read the same text on paper and on screen. Paper reading produced fast brain waves, the pattern linked to focused attention. Screen reading shifted the brain into slow waves, the pattern linked to daydreaming (ie mind wandering). These were the same kids reading the same words, resulting in measurably different brain states.
A separate 2022 study from Showa University in Japan scanned the front of the brain – the area that manages focus and comprehension – while participants read from phone and paper. Reading from smartphones sent that region into overdrive, meaning the brain was straining just to keep up with basic processing. Paper reading produced a moderate load that triggered natural deep breathing, which helped regulate brain function and sustain focus. Reading on the phone suppressed that breathing pattern entirely.
Since 2017, researchers have published seven major reviews combining hundreds of individual studies. Six of seven reached the same conclusion: people understand less on screens. A 2018 review of 54 studies and over 170,000 participants, literally titled “Don’t throw away your printed books,” found paper outperformed screens across the board for non-fiction.
X user @Toady99999 commented: “I had a book published a few years ago (travel/humour) and I noticed that reviews from e-book readers were noticeably less positive than those from readers who bought the physical book.”
Don’t throw away your books
In 2019, nearly 200 reading scientists from over 30 countries signed an open letter – known as the Stavanger Declaration Concerning the Future of Reading – warning that screen reading was degrading deep comprehension and that print still offers distinct advantages for deep, immersive reading.
Sweden has led a shift back to physical books and traditional learning methods in schools following a decline in literacy and critical skills linked to excessive screen time. The government invested over €100 million (2023–2025) to provide printed textbooks – one book per subject per student.
As classrooms and readers alike recalibrate, the lesson is a simple one: for depth over distraction, the page still outperforms the pixel.
