Abstract
In this chapter, we deal with the disturbance of concentration, which is the third factor contributing to the difficulty of reading on digital displays. In other words, this chapter discusses the ease of concentrating on reading with each medium.
We present four main reasons why digital environments inhibit concentration on reading. First, digital environments come with many stimuli that disrupt reading, such as menus, icons, a mouse cursor, alerts, or popup messages. Second, hyperlinks that are often found in digital environments sometimes inhibit the reader’s understanding of the content of the text. Third, digital devices provide many functions that encourage multitasking, such as email, social media, and games. Fourth, the poor operability of digital environments makes it difficult to concentrate on reading.
We also present a study showing that working with paper tends to lead to more abstract thinking, while working with digital environments tends to make people pay attention to more specific and detailed information.
To sum up, we will learn that the simple appearance of paper, without any commands, functions, or visual disruptions, facilitates concentration on reading.
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Notes
- 1.
As illustrated by examples such as “singing while playing the piano” and “speaking while driving,” the simultaneous execution of two or more tasks is not always impossible. The factors determining whether dual tasks are possible include whether or not one of the tasks can be performed automatically (unconsciously), differences in sensory modality between the two tasks, the similarity of the tasks, one’s level of practice, the degree of one’s training, the difficulty of each task, etc.
- 2.
Although long-term training can enable amazing feats of multitasking (Spelke et al. 1976), there have still been no reports of any person who is able to understand two people speaking at the same time or who can read one book while listening to and understanding a different audiobook.
- 3.
A web version of this test has been released. http://psy2.fau.edu/~vallacher/insights_BIF.html.
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Shibata, H., Omura, K. (2020). Ease of Concentration on Reading. In: Why Digital Displays Cannot Replace Paper. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9476-2_6
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