Portraying Screen Reading Behavior of College Students of University of Delhi

The present paper explored various screen reading activities of undergraduate students of twelve colleges of University of Delhi. It included browsing/scanning, keyword spotting, concentrated reading, one time reading, reading selectively and non-linear reading. It also investigated several ways of handling the electronic documents along with frequently used reading devices and preferred location for reading the documents. The study administered structured print questionnaires and received 506 completed questionnaires from undergraduate students of different disciplines i.e. sciences, social sciences and humanities. Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient test was applied using the SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science, Version-25) along with the Weighted Mean. Results revealed that Screen reading activities such as browsing/scanning (54.0 %), reading selectively (51.0 %), concentrated reading (36.2 %), one time reading (33.0 %), keyword spotting (28.3 %) and non-linear reading (23.5 %) were increasing among undergraduate students of all the three disciplines. The preferences of undergraduate students for reading devices and locations reveals that majority of 51.0 per cent students used smartphones followed by laptops (29.5 %), personal computers (7.4 %) and the minimum number of only 5.5 per cent of students were using tablets. Maximum number of 38.3 per cent students preferred reading at their homes followed by library (17.8 %) and while travelling (17.2 %). The lowest number of (6.8 %) students read books in their hostels. Overall, it revealed that in present scenario, students’ concentration level has found increased reading the content on screen. Whereas, the situation was other way round with the earlier generations. Few factors such as convenience, flexibility, portability and ownership in using smart devices make them connected online with the peer groups and read content on screen at their own pace.