Though it has been more than 15 years since Project Gutenberg started publishing classic literature online and seven years since Amazon launched the Kindle, research on how e-books change the reading experience has been scarce. 

With her new book, Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, Naomi Baron, a professor of linguistics at American University, brings more data to the case for print. Dedicated to the study of how technology has reshaped human reading and writing, she has done cross-border research to figure out readers’ attitudes toward the rise of e-books.

Baron and her colleagues surveyed more than 300 university students in the US, Japan, Germany, Austria, Israel, Slovakia and other countries, and found a near-universal preference for print, especially for serious reading. (She finds that the format doesn’t matter so much for “light reading.”) When students were given a choice of various media—including hard copy, cell phone, tablet, e-reader and laptop—92 percent said they could concentrate best on a printed copy.
 

The first reason cited was that they get distracted, pulled away to other things. The second had to do with eye strain, headaches and physical discomfort, said Baron. When Slovakians were asked what they don’t like about reading on a screen, one reason given was, “I care about the smell of a book.”

Manoush Zomorodi, managing editor of WNYC’s New Tech City, says digital technology has produced an ongoing fight within our brains. The more you read on screens, the more your mind shifts towards “non-linear” reading—a practice that involves things like skimming a screen or having our eyes dart around a web page. 
 

“Reading and deep reading are learned skills,” Baron said, which makes printed books irreplaceable.

 

Zhang Xiaoxi is a reporter from Chinese Social Sciences Today, based in Washington.