Is reading something on a screen… actually the same thing as reading a book? We are inclined to think… that since both activities are »called the same thing and »seem to involve ‘the same skill(?)’… they are the same.

There are physical (and emotional, and cognitive) investments in books, that aren’t merely missing from reading on screens… in some cases they are either excluded… or impossible.

Consider that these two things involve different modes of relation with light. Light is reflected off a physical substance… paper, when we read a book. But the transmissive light of screens is so different to our eyes, that it might as well be the opposite of what we are doing and feeling when we read books.

It might seem extreme to suggest that I would call the skin of an apple an apple because I chew them both… but it might serve us well to bear in mind that reading a book involves our hands, minds, space, light «time… and dimensionality that is entirely lost on screens. The ‘pages’ don’t curve. The light from the screens penetrates our vision in mechanical frequencies…

These are nothing like the same thing. Ten skills get trained in reading a book that don’t really exist in reading from screens. Features of our attention, vision and the interactions of our hands with the physical object create entirely different memory forms than can possibly arise from relation with screens. Even when they try to emulate books. The fundamental »flatness of screens… and the »projection of electronic light into the retina…

are so unlike all that happens when we read »books, and relate with them.

And this is to say nothing of the relationships between our minds and »bookshelves. And the way they influence not merely »memory… but a variety of »predictive faculties involved in imagining the content of unread and previously read books…