Reading on digital media may make a person more inclined to focus on concrete details rather than interpreting information more abstractly.
People who used tablets and laptops for reading may make them more inclined to focus on concrete details rather than interpreting information more abstractly, claims a new study. The findings serve as another wake-up call to how digital media may be affecting our likelihood of using abstract thought.
‘Digital platforms such as tablets and laptops can affect the problem-solving ability and creative thinking.’
The research tested the basic question: would processing the same information on a digital versus non-digital platform affect "construal levels"-- the fundamental level of concreteness versus abstractness that people use in perceiving and interpreting behaviors, events and other informational stimuli. In order to study the basic question of whether processing the same information on one platform or the other would trigger a different baseline "interpretive lens" or mindset that would influence construals of information, the research tried to hold as many factors as possible constant between the digital and non-digital platforms.
Reading the material and other content for the study, for example, was published using the same print size and format in both the digital and non-digital (print) versions. The research was comprised of four studies that evaluated how information processing is affected by each platform. A total of more than 300 participants, ages 20 to 24 years old, took part in the studies, which were comprised of 60 to 100+ participants.
Reading comprehension and problem-solving success were affected by the type of platform used. Highlights from the studies include the following:
- Participants were asked to read a short story by author David Sedaris on either a physical printout (non-digital) or in a PDF on a PC laptop (digital), and were then asked to take a pop-quiz, paper-and-pencil comprehension test. For the abstract questions, on average, participants using the non-digital platform scored higher on inference questions with 66 percent correct, as compared to those using the digital platform, who had 48 percent correct. On the concrete questions, participants using the digital platform scored better with 73 percent correct, as compared to those using the non-digital platform, who had 58 percent correct. (See Study 2; mean scores were translated into percentages by lead author).
- Participants were asked to read a table of information about four, fictitious Japanese car models on either a PC laptop screen or paper print-out, and were then asked to select which car model is superior. Sixty-six percent of the participants using the non-digital platform (printed materials) reported the correct answer, as compared to 43 percent of those using the digital platform. (See Study 3A).
- Triggering a more abstract mindset prior to an information processing task on a digital platform appeared to help facilitate a better performance on tasks that require abstract thinking. Specifically, 48 percent of participants reported the correct answer to the Japanese car judgment task after completing a priming activity intended to activate a high-level of construal in which they were tasked to take on an abstract mindset, as compared to the 30 percent, who answered correctly without the priming activity. (See Study 3B).
Advertisement
The study on digital versus non-digital platforms was prompted by earlier research by the co-authors, which revealed that players of the digital version of the public health strategy game, POX: Save the PeopleĀ®" were more inclined to respond with localized solutions, rather than looking at the big picture.
Advertisement
The study is published in the Proceedings of ACM CHI '16, the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, to be held May 7-12, 2016.
Source-Eurekalert