February 27/19

 

Read the same book on Kindle and as a physical in-your-hand book.

There is a different feeling about them. Move from a lighted screen onto a paper page and there’s a kind of let-down. The paper page is duller, less significant, less exciting. We are tuned to light. The lighted screen gives importance to things above and beyond their intrinsic merit. Lighted screens make you suspend judgement. It all started with fire. Staring into a fire. About a million years ago.


 

 

 

 

As most writers and editors know, you will miss typos and inconsistencies in your text if you try to edit on the computer screen, because you’ve suspended judgement. The light makes you less attentive, you coast. The great two-edged sword.