Reading a Physical Bible versus electronically

Over the years the percentage of my reading on ebooks have increased though I still try to read primarily physical books.

Yet I try to read the Bible as much as possible through the medium of a hardcopy physical book.

I’m not legalistic about it but I thought there’s advantages to reading in general with physical books; and that has implications for why we want to read from a physical book form Bible.

I found this interesting article from Book Riot that says:

Before the early ’90s, studies, according to The Scientific American, “concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively on screens than on paper.”

Later studies back this up. A study on kids’ enjoyment when they read ebooks vs physical books report “children showed a preference for print” despite the allure of a screen. Parents, too, reported their children “paid more attention” to a print book. A Norwegian study of 10th graders revealed those who read paperbacks scored higher on post-reading questionnaires than those who read on computer screens, both with informational and narrative texts.

…

A 2014 study found adults who read a mystery in paper form had “superior retention” of the story in comparison to those who read it on Kindle. Psychologist Kate Garland’s “Do E-Books Make it Harder to Remember What You Just Read?” reported subjects needing to read something multiple times before understanding it to the same degree as those reading in print. Stavanger University in Norway conducted a study in which 50 people read the same short story, half on a Kindle and half in print. They came to the conclusion that “paper readers did report higher on measures having to do with empathy and transportation and immersion, and narrative coherence, than iPad readers.”

Most notable was the lack of being able to piece together the plot of the novel. According to PRI, “humans use different parts of the brain when reading from a piece of paper or from a screen…the more you read on screens, the more your mind shifts towards “non-linear” reading — a practice that involves things like skimming a screen or having your eyes dart around a web page.” The New York Times reports, “people read more slowly on screen, by as much as 20–30 percent.”

I also notice that when I read from a physical  Bible I have better memory of returning to a specific passage because of my memory of where it is in the Bible, the location its found on a page, etc.

Furthermore I’m less distracted with things compared to reading on a laptop or other electronic devices.

What other advantages you can think of with physical Bibles?

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