The thread that your blog post connects to is part of the culture change in communications that I deal with in this blog, so here are some further thoughts.

I think…. that those monks who lost their jobs as book transcribers and illuminators were probably very, very peeved with Caxton.

I think…. that they probably spent years making a case for the enriching experience of reading a hand made illuminated text as opposed to a nasty, mass produced printed thing off a machine.

And to a certain degree, they were probably right.

But then I met a friend of mine a few days ago who is a confirmed technophobe – by his own admission dreadful with technology – and has found his life is much improved because instead of travelling with a laptop, and a book, and a newspaper (and he travels a lot) he now has an iPad.

I have piles of unread books in traditional format which I never get to read because I spend my time dashing around for work and personal life, a lot of which requires me to look at a screen.

Now, whilst I prefer paper, and I treasure all my university texts with my immature scribbles – I have to say, an iPad is on my Christmas wish list!

Your is the question we need to answer. Someday.

Ross Dawson just told me:

“….I think it’s fair to say
paper reading and ‘screening’ are different. But as digital paper improves,
it will become the same experience as paper reading. Active and passive
screens are not the same thing. When we can emulate paper in a digital form,
why would it be any different from a neurological or other perspective?”

But Deborah WHAT IF scientists cannot emulate paper on a screen, and that there are neurological differences between reading on paper vs reading off screens? WHAT IF?

Blog on this from your POV?

If:
(a) = make money for shareholders.
(b) = ponce around saving the world
(c) = fire them
(d) = sue them
(e) = applause

And if:
(b) achieves (a) then shareholders should (e)

Otherwise:
Shareholders should (c) and (d)