Sweden goes back to printed textbooks
Digital Learning: not the golden egg, just a lot of scrambled hype?
In 2009, Sweden, in a fit of techno-optimism, decided to banish books from classrooms and replace them with the shiny allure of computers. Because, of course, who needs the joy of flipping through pages or the smell of old paper when you can have the cold, unblinking glow of a screen? Fast forward fifteen years, and Sweden has now spent a cool 104 million euros to... wait for it... bring printed textbooks and notebooks back.
Why the sudden change of heart, you ask? Well, it turns out that Swedish children, after years of swiping and clicking, have somehow forgotten how to read and write as well as they used to, earlier. The 2021 PIRLS study revealed that Swedish kids’ literacy skills had taken a nosedive, prompting a collective gasp from the country’s politicians who suddenly realized that maybe, just maybe, replacing books with computers was not the educational utopia they had imagined. So, in a move that can only be described as “admitting they were wrong,” the Swedish government has decided to dust off the old textbooks and put them back on students’ desks.
“There’s clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning. We believe the focus should return to acquiring knowledge through printed textbooks and teacher expertise, rather than acquiring knowledge primarily from freely available digital sources that have not been vetted for accuracy.” Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, a highly respected medical school focused on research, said in a statement in August 2024, on the country’s national digitalisation strategy in education.
If you visit Swedish schools now, you’ll find teachers rediscovering the ancient art of printed books, silent reading, and—gasp—handwriting practice. It turns out that students retain less when reading from glowing screens compared to actual paper.
And yes, I’m fully aware you’re reading this on a device (the irony is not lost on me). But if you’re still here and curious about WHY learning from the printed page rules over digital learning, keep scrolling. Oh, and by the way, I’ve taken the radical step of compiling my news stories from the real world (like this story that you are reading) into a PRINTED magazine for kids. Yes, paper! Our 2024 end-of-year edition is a delightful throwback to the days when children could smell the pages, hold stories in their hands, laugh out loud, and even doodle in the margins. These stories from the real world have a unique power to unveil truths that school textbooks often cannot capture. I hope that these news stories inspire children to question and connect.
Here’s where you can buy this for your child OR gift it to any child aged 8-15. This orange button below does the trick.
Every week on the Lighter Side, I share a news story with you—a practice that often helps to clarify the world for myself. Since the pandemic, I’ve wrestled with a growing concern: children were handed devices during 2020-21 - a seemingly essential tool to connect with teachers and peers. Even after the pandemic had died, this reliance on digital tools had became second nature. Even as classrooms reopened, many parents and educators let the habit persist and in some cases, schools moved to digital / hybrid modes. But here’s the question we must ask: How much screen time is truly beneficial for academic learning? Or should we safely assume that devices are only for entertainment?
This post isn’t just a guide for adults, it is equally (or more so) for the young readers who are reading this post and are navigating this digital landscape. It’s about understanding the consequences of relying too heavily on devices to ‘LEARN’.
Reading from a book in hand is better than an e-reader
Let’s start with what research says. One study found that reading from a physical book helps you understand 6 to 8 times better than reading from an e-reader. So, if you’re reading this on your phone or computer, you’d understand it better if it were in a newspaper or magazine. Even among screens, reading on a phone is much worse than reading on a computer. Why? Because when we read on screens, we tend to pay less attention and process information in our brains in a more shallow way. Why, you ask? Read on to find out.
1. What scrolling text on a device does to our minds
A study measured two sets of participants who read comic books - one set scrolled through a comic book’s individual panels. Another group saw the SAME comic book panels on printed pages. The readers who read the same comic book digitally, understood way less of it, than the ones who read the same content on a book.
Here’s why this might happen - when we read, our brains construct a map of what we are reading - for e.g. it recognises that a piece of information appeared near the top, left-hand page of a book. But when the same brain reads the same content on a device, it has nothing to hold onto, to draw this map. Imagine drawing a map of something with constantly moving landmarks, like a webpage. This means the brain loses important “visual placeholders.
A scientist who conducted this research says, “Scrolling demands more from our working memory. In our working memory, we can hold about seven items at a time, so the goal when reading is to take away as many demands as possible. When we have to remember what we just read and we don’t have spatial cues to help, that’s taking some of our bandwidth.”
This means that reading content online by scrolling along WITHOUT visual cues means more pressure on the mind to figure out ways to remember or retain information. This means, we are left with lesser brain band-with to COMPREHEND and even ENJOY / APPRECIATE the book we read.
2. Reading is multi-sensory - we don’t just read with our eyes, but use all our senses.
When you read a book, you use your eyes to see the words and your nose might even smell the pages (especially if it’s an old book). But did you know that your hands are super important too? When you read a long book with lots of pages, your hands help you keep track of where you are.
If you read on a Kindle, phone, or computer, the words might look the same as in a paper book, but it feels very different. When you read a real book, you can touch the pages and feel how much you’ve read. You can see the page number, but you can also feel how many pages are on the left (already read) and how many are on the right (still to read). Turning the pages gives you a sense of how far you’ve gotten in the story. But when you read on a screen, you only have your eyes to tell you where you are. You can’t feel the pages or see how much is left. This makes it harder to remember where things happened in the story. This matters because understanding the order of events is really important. If you know when something happened, it helps you understand why it happened. For example, if a character finds a key early in the story, it might help them open a door later. Knowing the order of events helps your brain make sense of the story and figure out how everything fits together.
A study measuring comprehension of plot and sequence in a text found that people who read paper books understand the story and the order of events much better than people who read on screens. Digital readers had more difficulty in connecting events and ideas in a text. Since screens lack tactile stimulus (tactile = touch), this is also a factor that impacts the reader’s comprehension of the text.
3. Reading on devices like phones and tablets (or even computers) take a toll on our working memory
Digital reading can lead to poorer working memory because the visual presentation on screens often creates more distractions. This means we need to put in more cognitive effort to navigate the same content. It hinders our ability to actively hold information in mind while reading, especially when compared to traditional print reading which offers a more focused experience.
Additionally, the presence of hyperlinks also makes it very hard on the brain to maintain a linear thought. In a book, once you hold the content in your hand, there is no other place for your mind to wander to. The page holds your attention and until you are done and put down your book, your mind is NOT distracted or diverted to click on hyperlinks in the middle of texts.
4. Visual strain also leads to lesser cognitive bandwith
Then, there’s the strain on the eye. Reading on screens often involves more visual scanning as the eyes move across the page, which can put additional strain on working memory compared to the smoother eye movements of print reading. When the eye is forced to make an extra effort to read on screen, the cognitive load goes up - once again impairing the reader’s comprehension of the same text.
The Golden Egg that’s turned out to be scrambled egg
Gah! that’s a LOT of things going WRONG when you are reading content online. Even without the burden of digital reading, it’s hard to prepare for exams. Imagine a tenth-grader in Sweden who is preparing to take some real tough exams with their brains further muddied about by digital reading!
As Sweden’s example shows, learners (especially those of ages below 20) are best served by learning through two sources
the good old printed book, and
the noble human teacher who knows your name AND can teach you without buffering
On that note…
I have decided to leave all hyperlinks to external sources beneath my posts from hereon. I know that there are as many young readers as there are adults (>18) who read my weekly posts. Here’s my little contribution to reduce distractions within the text, while you read the Lighter Side.
That printed magazine that I was talking about earlier (the one with news stories from 2024) sounds like a really good gift for young readers who can savour the book in their hands. It is available for purchase at INR 399/-. Let that be your best gift NOW!
References
Study on reading comprehension on handheld devices vs printed paper
Why multi-sensory reading using printed paper is better than digital reading
Other recommended reads on Lighter Side
Stories from the life and times of Sudha Murthy