In the comment section of a recent post, Doug Johnson refers to himself as Doug 1.0 because he had printed out an article to read later. It got me thinking…. Are there any studies available that measure reading comprehension levels of material read in hard copy vs. material read on a computer screen? I have speculated on this before – but so far have not found a study. Probably ineffective search methods.

I am interested because most of my students (grade 9-12) prefer reading printed articles, rather than reading them online. Does that make them Students 1.0 – or do they instinctively know that when they need to read “deeply”, the printed word works better for them than the digital word? Or maybe they just like to kill trees and bug the library staff to change the ink cartridge….