Reading on screen without losing comprehension

The paper-screen gap

At identical content, reading on screen produces on average slightly lower comprehension than reading on paper, and the gap widens on long, demanding texts. Three causes compound.

The absence of spatial landmarks. On paper, you know a piece of information was bottom left, a third of the way through the book. Scrolling text removes that information.

Permanent temptation. The reading device is also the notification device. Each interruption costs ten to twenty minutes of climbing back into attention.

The default reading mode. You approach a screen in scanning mode, inherited from web browsing, whereas you approach a book in reading mode.

All three causes can be corrected, and once corrected the gap becomes negligible.

The seven settings

One. Column width between fifty and seventy-five characters. This is the most profitable setting: a line that is too long loses you the return to the next one, which causes regressions. Your browser's reader mode does it automatically.