Why a good old-fashioned book is better for your mental health.
By Heather Rose Artushin, LISW-CP
Screens are replacing paper in nearly every area of communication — but is that good for our mental health? Research proves the countless mental health benefits of reading, yet most people still choose screen time over picking up a book when it comes to entertainment.
Even in schools, the days of buying those flexible textbook covers for your heavy course books are behind us; digital forms of learning are gaining priority, lightening backpacks but burdening young minds with the challenge of staying task-focused in a sea of digital distractions. Reading brief teaser text while scrolling social media doesn’t just hinder our attention span and make it harder for our dopamine-addicted brains to digest long books — it also dilutes language, using more informal, conversational writing that exposes us to far less rich, brain-strengthening vocabulary and ideas.
Research shows comprehension is six to eight times better with physical books than with e-books (Altamura, L., Vargas, C. & Salmerón, L., 2023). While many people find they can read faster on a device, distractions such as social media scrolling, ads and email notifications often interfere with memory retention. Physical books offer an immersive experience, resulting in readers absorbing and remembering content more effectively. Holding the weight of a book in your hands, turning the pages, even highlighting your favourite passages — these are experienced in the body. In fact, according to researchers, turning pages while reading builds an “index” in the brain, visually mapping what we’ve read to a specific page (Rothkopf, Ernst Z., 1971). This is part of what allows the brain to retain information better when reading from a physical book.
From how you position your body while holding a book, to how your head and eyes adjust to scan the pages as you turn them, there are notable differences in how our bodies experience reading a good old-fashioned book. Mangen, A. and van der Weel, A. wrote: “Print books, and the substrate of paper, lend a distinct physicality to individual texts, whereas e-books are not physical tangible volumes and are touched, held, carried, and navigated differently,” in “The evolution of reading in the age of digitisation: an integrative framework for reading research” (2016, pp. 116–124). “The tactile feedback of a touchscreen differs from that of a paper book, and the implications of such interactions call for empirical research. Studies in experimental psychology and neuroscience show that object manipulation provides spatial information that is critical to forming coherent mental representations of the object being manipulated.”
Beyond enhancing comprehension and providing an immersive, tangible experience, reading a physical book offers a unique social experience that e-readers miss out on. Whether it’s browsing the shelves at a bookshop, coffee in hand, asking your local librarian for recommendations from their collection, or lending a friend a copy of your favourite book, connecting with fellow book lovers is one of the aspects of reading people enjoy most. Downloading a book onto your e-reader skips these opportunities for connection.
Perhaps most notable is most people’s undeniably strong preference for reading printed books. In one study, 92% of students reported preferring print books over e-books (Baron, N. S., 2015). There’s something special about holding a book in your hands, admiring the cover art, or even appreciating how your bookmark visually progresses through the time you’ve spent turning pages.
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/well-read/202402/the-case-for-paper-books-vs-e-readers#:~:text=Key%20points,visually%20to%20a%20particular%20page.
References
Altamura, L., Vargas, C., & Salmerón, L. (2023). Does the Emerging Format Pay Off? A Meta-Analysis on the Relationship Between Leisure Digital Reading and Reading Comprehension. Review of Educational Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543231216463
Baron, N. S. (2015). Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World. Oxford University Press.
Mangen, A., & van der Weel, A. (2016). The evolution of reading in the age of digitisation: an integrative framework for reading research. Literacy, 50: 116–124. doi: 10.1111/lit.12086.