Book on the Brain

[a_belletrist]

I have a powerful desire to be working on the book now, rather than doing my daytime job. But it's that time, and there's work-work to be done, so I'm trying to shove my brain over into that modality. It's resisting mightily.

Comments

[cochese]

I can see a kinesthetic difference with eBook readers. How you interact with the book or reader changing your experience of the book. I mean, even different types of books have a different effect on my experience. My yellowed 1960s printing of Robert E. Howard's Conan feels like a different experience from reading a modern printing of a novel. But a lot of that is my own sort of associations for what a "pulp printing" is versus modern printing

[cochese]

Another element to consider is: Would society as a whole care? Plenty of people insist that the quality of sound from CDs doesn't match vinyl records. And there are some music snobs who prefer vinyl. But most people get CDs or MP3s because they are just more convenient. And convenience often edges out quality in terms of how people lead their lives.

[a_belletrist]

I didn't say anything was ruined. I said it was a different experience reading something that is pixilated rather than something that is a whole shape, which is a characteristic of typeset

[a_belletrist]

Society often doesn't care about a lot of very very important things, and this isn't something global or horrible.

How one takes in, processes and experiences information is probably not on most people's radar. Maybe it should be, as how and why we think is as important, if not more important, than what we think, as they are the bedrock upon which we form thought.

[cochese]

I didn't think I'd said you thought it was ruined, though I may have implied it. But now that you mention it, the main thrust of your post seemed to me to be, "Sorry folks, the eBook just won't give you the same story for your brain as a paper book will. That's hard science. And it's a bummer, because don't you want to get every erg of experience from a story that the writer put into it? I know I do. I really do."

I read that as you feeling there was a loss of quality, that digital books will not give you every erg of experience and print books will. Because, as you said earlier, "Things seen on something that utilizes a dot-imaging tube/screen have a lower over-all impact/engagement on various parts of your brain because they have a lower resolution than the same thing seen on a screen."

If I got this wrong, I'm sorry. But these were the key points I took away from your post.