Chinese reading skills: does offline reading beat online reading?

I have a confession to make here: I’m an old-fashioned guy who likes to read the old-fashioned way and believes firmly in the paper brain and deep reading. When it comes to reading Chinese texts though, the advantages of online-reading are simply overwhelming. How to make the best out of both worlds?

Online reading

What makes online reading great?

• Texts tend to be up to date! I mean who wants to read some Mao Zedong poem if you could be reading what is happening in China right now or for that matter any other content that is relevant to you.
• Never ending supply of free online resources (Intermediate and advanced learners can check out the Mandarin version of the New York Times or read Chinese news from Deutsche Welle for example)
• You can find topics that naturally interest you instead of reading random topics covered in your Chinese textbook.
• Most important: You can use smart reader apps like DuShu and others to track your progress, create your own system of flashcards and vocabulary lists. Reader apps can tell you the difficulty level of a given text and support you with in-built dictionaries.
• In modern times, where people are always busy, experience teaches that for most of us it is easier to find time for reading Chinese by using a smartphone that’s almost permanently within reach. As opposed to physical Chinese reading material that we don’t always carry with us.

But there are some risks as well…

• The texts won’t always match your reading level. If they are too hard for you, you can loose interest easily. This is why people invented graded readers for Chinese.
• Some people say you are more easily distracted reading online (pop-ups, other content appearing, chat messages and what have you). This depends on your situation, but I somewhat agree.
• When I read online-texts or use an app like Pleco or DuShu, I have an urge to check every unknown character. This is not a good way to read texts, because the learning effect is very limited. I have forgotten most new characters the day after. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as clicking or tapping your way to fluency. Skill comes with practice. And practice in this case means daily brain gymnastics.

Reading like the monkey king or Non-linear reading

Neuroscience, in fact, has revealed that humans use different parts of the brain when reading from a piece of paper or from a screen. So 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. 

Your paper brain and your Kindle brain aren’t the same thing

Offline reading

Merits of reading the old-fashioned way

• I personally like the focus of the physical object in front of me. In others words, I get out my book and will put any other stuff that will distract me away, so it’s just me and the text I’m reading. This is called deep reading or slow reading and involves a higher level of concentration.
• I also have the habit of making markings, notes and drawings when I’m studying a text. Of course, you can do that online as well and may even have more editing options available, but still! Old habits die hard. I cannot help preferring to “physically” work my way through a text.
• If you are reading a Chinese textbook like the New Practical Chinese Reader, chapters follow a well thought out progression and cover a variety of general topics. Most of which even proofed quite useful in China, though I didn’t really like those texts much when studying, I have to admit. The point this kind of offline reading really helps you laying the foundation for basic proficiency.
• Finally, I wonder if NOT having quick access to a dictionary can have a positive effect on your reading and learning process, because it forces you to read texts within your reading ability like graded readers, where as with online reading it would be too convenient to look up a great number of unknown words that you won’t remember the next day.

Deep reading is the active process of thoughtful and deliberate reading carried out to enhance one’s comprehension and enjoyment of a text. Contrast with skimming or superficial reading. Also called slow reading.

A Guide to Deep Reading

What’s less attractive…

• This has always been a major issue: most textbooks take so much time to conceive, write and publish that by the time they are released, they are already outdated. When time goes by, they have a tendency to grow increasingly odd and silly. To take an extreme example: I have a Chinese reader which is filled with stories about communist wartime heroes and speeches of Mao. Apart from being historically interesting (if you dig ‘Chinese language teaching history’), this reader has lost its relevance.
• Or to counter this effect, readers become just so timelessly boring, containing only classical texts or lifeless reading material that fails to be relevant on any level.
• Mostly you look in vain for any “hot topics” like new trends in Chinese social media or currently the Sino-US trade war that you might want to be able to discuss with your Chinese friends.
• Many textbooks come with audio, but certainly not all. This problem is easier to solve online.

So to come to a conclusion here: offline reading still has got its merits. The key issue being FOCUS which allows us to comprehend and appreciate what we read on a deeper level. It shouldn’t be impossible to integrate that into our online reading routine though. The possibilities of online reading are just too good to ignore. For now, I stick with a healthy mix of both: online reading can definitely complement old-fashioned, offline reading in a powerful way.