Reading from paper compared to screens: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Clinton, sole author. A systematic review and meta-analysis restricted to randomised experiments with competent readers, covering 29 reports and 33 studies. Reading performance favoured paper over screens by about 0.25 in standard-deviation units across 2,799 participants, reading time showed no reliable difference, a null, and calibration favoured paper. The performance effect sat in expository text, with effectively no difference for narrative text.
Clinton, sole author. A systematic review and meta-analysis restricted to randomised experiments with competent readers, covering 29 reports and 33 studies. Reading performance favoured paper over screens by about 0.25 in standard-deviation units across 2,799 participants, reading time showed no reliable difference, a null, and calibration favoured paper. The performance effect sat in expository text, with effectively no difference for narrative text.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-18.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Clinton, V. (2019). Reading from paper compared to screens: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Reading, 42(2), 288-325. doi:10.1111/1467-9817.12269