Effects of devices on reading short explanatory texts

: online experimental study

Abstract

To explore the effect of devices on reading short explanatory texts, we conducted an online experiment comparing recollection after reading itemized texts of about 600 characters on a PC and on a smartphone. In the memory trial, participants read texts of 5 pages of 4 items and answered the questions about the order of two items in the texts, while they proofread the same form of texts in the proofreading trial. As a result, the order of items in a page was remembered better with smartphones than with PCs, while there was no difference in the order memory of items in different pages. Since there was no difference in proofreading accuracy and in reading time, it is not likely that there was a prominent difference in readability between the devices, suggesting that the memory of temporal order of itemized texts in a page is better for smartphones than for PCs.