Most e-books harm children learning to read, research finds, as technology distracts from stories Digital books including games at the end of chapters were found to have particularly negative effects on young children's learning 9 March 2021 • 3:00pm Print books outperformed their technological alternatives when children between one and eight were assessed on their comprehension of what they had read Credit: Tetra Images/Alamy Most ebooks actually harm children in their efforts to learn to read because the added use of technology can be distracting, research has found. In a comprehensive review of 39 different studies, researchers found that children aged one to eight-years-old were less likely to understand picture books when they read the digital version compared to the print.