The habit of reading in childhood and adult life is full of benefits that allow the development of cognitive and affective aspects. New technologies have revolutionized our world in recent years and also our way of dealing with everyday situations. Reading through the pages of a book has begun to be replaced by reading through screens.
The neuroscientific studies they show us how the brain is not designed for reading at the time of our birth. As children acquire learning to read, we see how other brain areas destined for different functions (recognition of people and things, etc.) adapt to assume the reading function. This means that our brain is flexible and plastic, and has a high capacity for adaptation. This adaptive capacity allows us to go from paper to digital format without great difficulties, especially for the children of the “technological age”.
It seems that the difference is in the format in which they learned to read. Thus, those of us who learned to read through writing on sheets have greater difficulties organizing reading through screens. If you don't know how long it takes to read a page, we can make some approximate estimates, but reading them in a physical format is not the same as reading them in a digital one. There are even applications that inform us how long it will take to read a book and that can serve as a reference for the child.
The lack of references is one of the great disadvantages of digital reading. Knowing the number of leaves through sight, drawings and even the touch of the book, help those of us who have learned to read and study through books. The study and memorization are hampered through screens, since the habit of working on the texts by means of notes in the margin, underlining, etc. are made impossible through these new formats. When writing about the texts we reorganize the information in a simpler way, since from the beginning of our study we got used to it, and so did the brain, which requires less effort (to think of being so plastic and flexible that allows us to do it also through digital format).
However, the "digital natives" seem not to find these difficulties with respect to the, since they got used to not having them from the beginning. Hyperlinks and references allow you to expand the information in a text immediately. The consultation of dictionaries and encyclopedias is not necessary through digital reading, and this supposes great advantages at the level of time for the reader.
We can't forget that digital reading brings benefits to people with visual difficulties, allowing you to increase the size of the font or include sounds. Similarly, people who suffer dyslexia they benefit from digital reading. Increasing the spacing between letters favors an improvement in the reading process of children with reading difficulties.
Digital reading brings great benefits to the little ones, but we cannot forget that reading paper stories at bedtime between parents and children creates a very special bond and promotes sleep. This very positive effect is somewhat reduced through the screens, since the excess light that these suppose for our brain in hours when it needs darkness to understand the transition from wakefulness to sleep, is affected. Before going to sleep, the most recommended reading is the traditional one, through paper books.
We are faced with a brain capable of adapting to technological developments relatively quickly. However, the digital reading process is benefited for those who were already born with tablets, and somewhat more disadvantaged for those who were born through textbooks. Both methods are enriched by the benefits of reading: development of fantasy and creativity, expansion of the vocabulary to use, improvement of emotional understanding and empathy, etc. Therefore, we use one method or another, we will be filling our brain with positive experiences that allow it to develop more optimally.