Effects of Digital Reading with On-Screen Distractions: An Eye-Tracking Study

Background: During digital reading on internet-connected devices, students may be exposed to a variety of on-screen distractions. Learning by reading can therefore become a fragmented experience with potentially negative consequences for reading processes and outcomes. Objectives: This study investigated the effects of on-screen distractions, as advertisements and social media notifications, during reading on text processing, perception of cognitive load and text comprehension. Methods: University students (N = 54) participated in a within-participant design. They read two digital science expository texts, one with and the other without distractions. Participants' eye movements were recorded during reading. Process variables were the first-pass fixation time on text areas and the fixation time on distractions. Working memory was taken into account as possible moderator of outcome variables, while controlling for prior knowledge and text topic. Results: Participants spent very short time fixating the distractions. From linear mixed models the main effect of distractions did not emerge for the immediate text processing. Perception of cognitive load and text comprehension were not affected by distractions either. Among individual differences, prior knowledge contributed to text comprehension. Text topic contributed to the perception of cognitive load. Takeaways: The study suggests that simple, static and very usual on-screen distractions during reading do not seem particularly harmful for university students' processing and comprehension of expository texts. Findings indicate the importance of students' top-down attentional control over on-screen distractions not to impair their own comprehension of complex content.