Paper (old fashioned way)?
Digitally (e-book, palm, etc.)?
I read that a good reader reads 100 words a minute less on a computer screen then on paper. Its to do with the glare of the moniter i think, probably why it hurts your eyes. I read on both, if im online im generally readings things, news, forums, irc, etc. But not extended reading like books. I prefer reading books on paper.
The glare of a computer screen isn't the main thing. It's the tangible sensation of handling a book. I like my books. I like carrying around a honking big book, especially hardcover with thick, stiff pages. I like being in rooms stuffed to the gills with stacks of musty old books. They're real to me; not just a means for relaying the information inside.
Imagine you lived your life without seeing or touching or hearing another living human being, but you had tons of friends online. It's the same people, you're hearing their thoughts and telling them yours, and they keep you company. You'd go insane and kill yourself. People do. Or what about the prediction that human beings would one day get all their nutrition from pills? Or those e-pets and tomagotchi things on a keychain. Just like a real animal, right? I don't know, books are real to me in the same way. Maybe if I had to go on a trip and pack light, and I had a lot of books to read for different classes, an ebook thing would be a convenient temporary solution. But I'd hate it.
If you had to live with this you'd rather lie than fall.
You think I can't fly? Well, you just watch me!
~The Dresden Dolls
given the right technology (that hasn't come along yet) i would chose a digital format over paper format. just the simplicity of instant access.
to the edge of eternity and depth of infinity, stupidity knows no bound.
I'd totally go for it if it was a reference book. Like a math or science book for school. That would be awesome, because carrying textbooks is seventh-circle-of-hell bad. God knows I've never bonded with a textbook. Oh my god, if the teacher said, "pull up page 357 of your Chemistry book, kids."
"Click."
Woohoo! Now that's useful technology.
My way of enjoying an e-book for a novel would be carrying around my beautiful, luscious gazillion-pound copy of the Karamazovs, and pulling the e-book out for looking up words, instead of also carrying a dictionary, or writing them down and having to check later. Ooh, I wonder if they would sell just the appendices of books, so you don't have to pay for the whole book, but wouldn't have to keep flipping to the back for footnotes? *drools like Homer Simpson* mmmm....electronic foootnooootes.....
Last edited by emily655321; 07-17-2004 at 02:28 AM.
If you had to live with this you'd rather lie than fall.
You think I can't fly? Well, you just watch me!
~The Dresden Dolls
True Emily
and though i hate it so much that my room become so narrow coz of my bookshelves, i'd feel a deep lost if i ahve to throw them away for the sake of instant and practical access of reading good stuffs.
i dont read digitly
i dont feel comfortable
Not All That Glitter Is Gold
*digitally =).
to the edge of eternity and depth of infinity, stupidity knows no bound.
Oh! Are you a teacher?
Originally Posted by JediFonger
paper is eisier on the eyes, and the temptation to go msn is not as bad. Also if you are out in the wild in an out house with no toilet paper, a book may be a little more usefull then a palm pilot,, JK. I would not do that to good literature, maybe mein kamph but not something usefull.
---------------
Stanislaw Lem
1921 - 2006, Rest In Peace.
"Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible"
I'm an old-fashioned kinda girl - I can't bear to read a screen unless its fanfiction and I'm forced to.
Raven
I had read 'dignity'...
dead on the inside, i've got nothing to prove
keep me alive and give me something to lose
I know my son (who is 10) prefers to read books on the internet, but i cant seem to concentrate for long this way. If its just reading for pleasure then i suppose its ok to read on the computer, but if you are reading academically, working towards writing criticism of that particular piece of literature, then i'm sure you need to have the book in your hands.
Paper version! Books are for me like hobby. I like to have a copy of my favorites. I used to sit and just enjoy watching them. Now I have no time for that.
C'mon! You can't read a novel on a screen! You've got to be 'portable', surely to God?
I usually prefer reading the 'old-fashioned' way on paper. Especially that I do not own a portable laptop, and I get much of my reading done while riding public transit (being a poor college student), I much prefer anything but e-books/e-texts. I have, however, found Internet e-texts very helpful for research, while wondering of other readers' opinions, summaries, and reviews; books and magazines provide only so much, not including the original writing, of course.
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