THE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY ON OUR READING HABITS

The widespread use of digital technology is changing reading habits, which have numerous benefits for communication, personal development, and mental health

Digital technology is becoming widespread in every aspect of our daily lives, from music to education, and is changing our habits. While this change is inevitable, it also brings some advantages and disadvantages. For example, car navigation (GPS) devices allow us to reach the address we want to go to easily and quickly, but when we use such devices continuously, our ability to find and remember addresses, that is, our navigation ability, weakens. Studies have shown that there is a correlation between declining navigation skills and dementia. In this context, the widespread use of digital technology is changing reading habits, which have numerous benefits for communication, personal development, and mental health.

STATISTICAL DATA

As in the rest of the world, digital media is rapidly replacing printed media in our country, and the number and circulation of printed newspapers and magazines are decreasing day by day. As can be seen in the graph below, the total number of newspapers and magazines in our country decreased by 9.2 percent in 2022 compared to 2021 and reached 4,048.

STORAGE OF BOOKS AND IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Depending on their memory capacity, smartphones, computers, and tablets, which are products of digital technology, are capable of storing thousands of books with a certain weight that occupy very large volumes on shelves and in libraries. In this way, readers are freed from the hassle of carrying heavy printed books and have the opportunity to use the space they need to allocate for them for other purposes. From an environmental point of view, the widespread use of screen reading prevents the cutting down of millions of trees from which paper raw materials are obtained.

UNHINDERED ACCESS TO BOOKS

Audiobooks, a product of digital technology, enable blind and partially sighted individuals to access thousands of books without using Braille. Audiobooks are not only preferred by visually impaired and partially sighted individuals to access books. Many people who want to make efficient use of their time also prefer audiobooks.

COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE

The studies on the effects of both methods on comprehension performance differ due to different levels of development, different age groups, and different levels of education. In the study conducted by H. Yaman and A. Dağtaş in 2013, it was stated that reading from the screen did not affect the reading comprehension of the students in the experimental group and that there was no statistically significant difference in reading comprehension between the experimental group students who read the reading texts from the screen and the control group students who read the reading texts from the printed page. In addition, these researchers stated that some reading skills in evaluating long and difficult texts require the reader to use high-level skills in order to understand the text as a whole, to relate different parts of the text to each other, and to understand the text as a whole and that these skills are more difficult to read on-screen texts by using reading behaviors from the printed page due to the use of scrolling dynamics in on-screen texts. They also emphasized that reading was interrupted because the on-screen texts flowed from top to bottom and each interruption made it difficult to establish a relationship between the previous and the next sections. The qualitative data of the study show that the students in the experimental group had different perceptions of reading comprehension from both reading environments and experienced various discomforts in their eyes, head, and body during the screen reading process.

In a comprehensive study published in 2019, V. Clinton conducted a meta-analysis of 38 previous studies on reading and comprehension from screen and print books, suggesting that reading from a print book yields better results in terms of performance outcomes and productivity than reading from a screen. In their 2023 study, L. Altamura et al. analyzed data from 26 published articles involving 469,564 participants between 2000 and 2022 and concluded that reading from a printed book leads to better comprehension than reading from a screen. In general, the studies emphasized that comprehension performance was negatively affected by distractions such as incoming e-mail alerts, advertisements, etc.

SLEEP AND THE BIOLOGICAL CLOCK

Experimental studies have shown that reading a book on a screen one hour before going to sleep has an inhibitory effect on sleep due to the short wavelength of the blue light emitted by the device, which suppresses the level of melatonin, also known as the sleep hormone, which is produced by the body and improves sleep quality, disrupts the circadian rhythm (the body’s biological clock), and also harms health, sleep, and performance, including alertness the next day.

CONCLUSION

About three centuries after the first printing press in the modern sense was used in Germany in 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg and his partner Fust to print books, the printing press was first used in the Ottoman Empire in 1727 by İbrahim Müteferrika. The factors that caused this long delay could not prevent the printing press from being used in Ottoman lands. These and many similar historical events show us that it is impossible to prevent change. Even if the use and diffusion of digital technology are delayed for various technical, economic, and social reasons, it cannot be completely prevented. It is not difficult to predict that future generations, especially Generation Z, who grow up with smartphones and tablets in their hands, will prefer reading on screens more, and that reading and printing printed newspapers, magazines, and books, despite their various advantages, will drop to very low levels, as can be seen from the statistical data. However, despite all these facts, it is also clear that the pleasure of the smell of a book cannot be obtained from screens.