Hard Copy Transition, and The Deep Reader

The digital wave has washed away businesses, and jobs, dissolving brick and mortar into cyber matrixes of binary codes and algorithms. The shopping experience is parting from necessity of commuting physically from one place to another. E-commerce is transporting the consumers’ attention from their surroundings through high speed portals, transfixing them with digital images, and quick transactions with the ease of a few swipes and clicks.

 

Thousands and thousands of purchasing possibilities accessible through the screen, navigable with even just one hand, and the evermore dexterous thumb. Actually going out to go shopping isn’t just about buying what you want anymore, the extra effort invested to waiver the digital alternative has made going to the shopping mall more of a ritual, a communion of a faith that is fading.

However, the acquiring of certain things, for certain people, are still sacredly guarded in the physical realm. Things like buying groceries for devoted moms, or selecting the perfect Blouson dress for the proud fashionista. The digital wave has yet deluged the desire to physically touch the fabric, to feel the seams, to see the cantaloupe, press it, and smell it. The deep immersive shopper is one who goes out to buy.

 

Does the different acquisition modes actually make a difference? And if it does, is it superficial or does it have significant psychologically impacts? Is there a difference between reading the news online and from reading a hard copy?

Countless hard copy publishers, newspapers, and magazines have transitioned platforms. Accepting the “e” affix, and embracing the alternate existential manifestation, while many just simply cease to exist.

 

Shutting down the printing press for S Weekly, formerly known as Student Weekly, and before that Kaleidoscope, marked the end of an English learning tradition for Thais that almost lasted 50 years. Kaohoon online reported on the final chapter of the edutainment magazine that was first printed on June 30, 1969.

 

I remember reading Student Weekly, I don’t remember about what I read, but I remember the size of the white paper folds that were a bit smaller, and more colorful than the newspapers, the heft of turning the pages. I remember feeling proud when I could read the articles without the need to look ahead at the provided vocabulary translations at the end of the articles. That must have been almost 20 years ago. And as I switch around between reading articles for research, and reminiscing, I doubt I’d remember the friction of the touchpad, or the cursor speed ten, twenty years from now.

Unlike the brief columns of the weekly magazines, one could recall much more from a novel that was read even further back into the past. But, skimming through articles during high school for mental exercise, and practice is quite different from “deep reading”.

 

In an interview with Verge, Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University in Massachusetts said:

“… a digital medium is going to require us to process large amounts of information very quickly, it will diminish from the time we have for slower processing work. And these slower processes are deep learning, the ones that are more cognitively challenging.”

According to Dr. Wolf, deep learning requires what she calls “cognitive patience”, a prerequisite for deep reading that leads to the learning of critical, analytical, and empathetic processing of information.  

 

The fact that digital mediums for reading is afforded by barrages of ads, and is accompanied by quick and easy switching of content may mean that digital is actually disruptive to the brain’s ability to physically wire itself for deep, immersive, and focused reading. Or on the flipside, makes it more challenging.

 

BBC – future reported:

“Research roughly indicates that print falls on one end of the reading spectrum (the most immersive) and that online text occurs at the other end (the most distracting). Kindle reading seems to fall somewhere in the middle.”

 

Having choices is one thing, being constantly distracted and tempted to give up on figuring out what’s being conveyed in the text by digital ads and a Youtube notification is another. The internet’s liberalizing advantages brings with it hordes of debilitating possibilities. From addiction, access to extreme and harmful content, to links with ADHD like behaviors, the internet is definitely a space that should be approached with caution. Then again, many books were banned in many places throughout history, and some still banned in certain places.

The future is so fascinating because no one really knows what’s going to happen. Now, we might be debating the affects of reading on the internet, not too long it could be about switching to bionic brains that complex informations and ideas could just be digitally transferred to.

Scientists and researchers like Dr. Wolf maybe right in that the human brain needs a book to cultivate important cognitive functions, but does the human need or want such a brain? Are individuals obligated to think deeply, read deeper? Is diving to fathom the depth of human cognitive capacity everyone’s duty?

 

If the human brain has an universal default command for wiring its circuit, but each individual has their own unique interface in filtering externalities and internalization processing, then choice is perhaps the key. Maybe having choices, the realization that there is always an alternative is the categorical imperative of being human. The best market place isn’t one where only the best products are available, but one where everyone gets to choose for themselves what product is best for them.

The digital wave has brought along with its destructive debris an unprecedented rate of market democratisation. And the experience of learning to navigate in it, the process of learning to avoid the bad and recognise the good, is invaluable.   

Deep reading isn’t just about not being distracted, it’s also about choosing not to get distracted. Focusness, patience, immersive attention, like a mother being totally devoted to tending for her baby, like the father who forgets everything else to protect and provide for his family, these qualities predate books, and needs to outlast the digital wave. Maybe it’s true that “the medium is the message”, and that’s ok, as long as the sender and receiver has the choice over what medium.

 

So, even if there’s less and less paperback reading, and everything is digitalized, if the core qualities of humanity doesn’t get lost in transition, we should be fine.