Com 390: Reading and the Screen
Our brains best work in linear directions. The reason for the Kindle, the iPad and the Nook - for these devices to be so popular is the fact that you can carry a library in your bag and yet still feel as if you are reading a book. Before books with pages were scrolls and parchment- each form was still written and read in a linear fashion…it is all we know. Not to say that eventually someday, someone will create something new…but who is to say it will be as universal as a linear book.
It is instinctive for us to open a book, read left to right, from top to bottom. To read a narrative book with a arch- the beginning, the building action, the climax, the falling action to the end. It makes sense to us without trying to relate…to dissect it and understand it. It comes naturally.
Espen J. Aarseth in her book entitled, “Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature” the author makes the following point about what technology has brought to the table concerning the public’s ability to access and read material. “However, after the invention of digital computing in the middle of the twentieth century, it soon became clear that a new textual technology had arrived, potentially more flexible and powerful than any preceding medium. Digital systems for information storage and retrieval, popularly known as databases, signified new ways of using textual material. The database is in principle similar to the filing cabinet but with a level of automation and speed that made radically different textual practices possible. On the physical level, the surface of reading was divorced from the stored information. For the first time, this breaks down concepts such as “the text itself” into two independent technological levels: the interface and the storage medium. On the social level, huge texts could be browsed, searched, and updated by several people at once, and from different places on the globe, operations that only superficially seem to resemble what we used to call “reading” and “writing.” Armed with a good search engine and a digital library, any college dropout can pass for a learned scholar, quoting the classics without having read any of them.”
Technology has blessed us with the ability to access material from anywhere at any location. Giving us the ability to learn about nearly everything under the sun at the ease of our couch at home. But are we truly learning the information we download and regurgitate from the internet? Or are we simply just faking it?
This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while ohmygoodness ahahahhahaha
(Source: runtodahillz, via ravenclaws-wit)
Birds have wings; they’re free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy.
Com 390: Relationship with the Screen
The idea of being able to have a relationship with a computer screen, iPad screen, or even something like a cell phone screen seems a bit out of the ordinary. In this day and age we are constantly connected to the world around us through technology, but we never stop to realize how different our world would be without the piece of plastic in our hands.
The world seemed infinitely bigger once the internet became accessible in our hands, twenty-four hours a day. But, then came the iPad, the tablet, the Nook- all of these opened up doors with how we interact with the internet, sources, and each other. These newer forms of technology allow us to hold something like a book, we can turn the pages like a book with our fingers but the difference is we swipe our finger across the screen. As a writing major, to me there is nothing better than a paperback in my hands, the smell of the ink on paper, and the feel of turning pages with my fingertips…
But as a child of technology, these devices that allow you to carry a small library with you at all times in the size and weight of a paperback- now these are things I am willing to look past in order to carry multiple books that Ican read any chance I have.
Not to mention, if the writing is too small to read, with the swipe of a finger you can enlarge it to a comfortable size. The screen allows us to view things as large as a football field at the comfort of an 8x11 sheet of paper, or something as small as a pin head at a comfortable 12in font. The ways to use the screen are endless and vast.
Do you want to know what my problem is? I will tell you what my problem is, I LOVE YOU I love your name, I love the way you look at me, I love your gorgeous smile, I love the way you walk, I love your beautiful eyes, I love what you look like when you are asleep, I love the sound of your laugh, to hear your voice fills my entire heart with an indescribable feeling. I love the way I can be having the worst day of my life and seeing you completely changes my mood. I love how when you touch me I get weak, that is my problem…
— Unknown
Don’t tell me to fight, to fight for you. After this long I shouldn’t have to. I know you’re fine, but what do I do?
(Source: callingallastronauts, via sexwithramsay)
NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY
