Problems of reading and comprehension: from digitized text to hypertext

In the article, the problem of heterogeneity of digital reading is raised. By analogy with Milgram and Kishino’s reality-virtuality continuum, it is proposed to consider screen reading not as a single monolithic system, but as a continuum that includes many modifications. The theoretical part of the article presents a typology of types of electronic text and modifications of reading. Both simple modifications (e.g., reading digitized text) and complex ones, including reading hypertext, are analyzed. It is shown that not only reading interactive online text, but also mono-code verbal text in PDF format differs significantly from paper reading in a number of parameters. Text comprehension is considered as a key issue in the problems of digital reading. In the practical part, using a sample of students in grades 5–9, the results of an empirical study of gender and age differences in the level of understanding of monocode digitized text are presented. It was revealed that when working with paper text, girls outperform boys in reading comprehension (p ≤ 0.05), demonstrating a more attentive attitude to factual information and better coping with tasks on conceptual information. Regarding screen reading, no significant gender differences were found (p > 0.05).

screen reading, digital reading continuum, modifications to reading, monocode text, hypertext, text comprehension, teenagers, gender and age differences