Digital Reading vs. Print Reading: A Comparative Review of Comprehension and Attention

Abstract

The rapid shift from print to screen-based reading has raised important questions about whether reading medium influences comprehension and attentional engagement. This review synthesizes evidence from two major meta-analyses and multiple experimental studies comparing digital and print reading across age groups and task conditions. Across studies, print reading tends to produce a small but reliable advantage in comprehension, especially for expository texts and when readers are under time pressure. Findings also suggest that screen reading can be associated with weaker task-adaptive attention (e.g., less reduction of mindwandering when demands increase) and, in some cases, reduced metacognitive efficiency. At the same time, medium effects are moderated by text genre, time constraints, and reader characteristics, indicating that “screen inferiority” is not universal. Educational implications include designing digital reading tasks that reduce scrolling burden, support deep processing, and scaffold attention regulation and calibration.