Materiality In Text

When comparing new media digital text to hand written notes or formally published books, I can only speak for myself in saying that I crave the physical. This could be due to a number of intimate characteristics about myself, but I find the evolution of text to digital format to be damaging to my personal experience with reading.

I'm the reader that you'll see huddled in a quiet corner--no distractions, pen in hand making marginal notes while trying to make sense of what I'm reading. I like having the opportunity to underline, highlight, run my finger along the letters as I read the sentences that they form. Something about physically having an experience with a text allows me to interact with it in a different, more in depth way versus just seeing the text on a screen.

Maybe my love for tangible text comes with my habitual infatuation with collecting things. Sort of marking my experience of the things I read and enjoy with a collection of books on shelves or articles in a box. It could also be my nature of being an obsessive list maker/note taker. There's something completely more intimate with the fluidity of thoughts represented by pen and paper than keys and Microsoft Word.

Maybe I'm just finicky and haven't adjusted to where we're headed but I think I'll always prefer what I was initially introduced to--printed books and hand written script.