Reading is healthy, but not all reading is created equally. Advocates of slow reading suggest that dedicated periods of thirty to forty-five minutes away from other distractions can lower stress and maximize reading benefits. And reading online content just isn’t as beneficial as reading in distraction-free environments:
One 2006 study of the eye movements of 232 people looking at Web pages found they read in an “F” pattern, scanning all the way across the top line of text but only halfway across the next few lines, eventually sliding their eyes down the left side of the page in a vertical movement toward the bottom.
None of this is good for our ability to comprehend deeply, scientists say. Reading text punctuated with links leads to weaker comprehension than reading plain text, several studies have shown. A 2007 study involving 100 people found that a multimedia presentation mixing words, sounds and moving pictures resulted in lower comprehension than reading plain text did.
