How the TOTAL planet becomes habituated in TOTAL screen reading!!!
How the TOTAL planet becomes habituated in TOTAL screen reading!!!
I had read once a news titled: Arab Publishers are fearless just because digital is not paper. This applies perhaps not only to this particular country/language mentioned but also to my vernacular publishers as well. Maybe even for all Indian languages' Publishers, not just my vernacular ones. The 'Arabian News' indicated fearlessness in the face of Internet piracy.
In the wake of Music & Movies being ripped online (through especially mp3 & mp4 files respectively) the 'Arab' publishers — and possibly many other language Publishers throughout the world too — still didn't feel any nervousness. Instead of considering the idea "As there, so here" (or "The Nature, like an Architect, follows the same style everywhere in its design") the Arabian etc Publishers emphasized on the difference between the media (text vs sound etc) rather than the similarity of a grand scheme of things to come.
They thought, for example, that Music can be heard from any computer tapping into the Pirate websites (as there is no change in the essential sensory experience of audibility e.g. it is as audible from the new machine 'computer' as it is from the old gramophone or tape recorder) but Books can't be read from the Computer for the following reasons:
- Screen reading has a different visual experience (apart from the content itself) which can't be tolerated in the long run
- Computer just doesn't provide the body-based freedom in reading a book like enjoying it while lying in bed or half-lying/half-sitting in a sofa or standing in the train
- The smell of the paper (further attracting the mind) is absent
- The touch with the paper (also attracting the mind) is absent
- The sound of turning the pages (again attracting the mind) is absent
The last three points are not the essential. But the first point is increasingly adjusted in the Google-Facebook era. People read a lot on the screen these days. And even at a stretch. And the 2nd point is fully true for Computer (as it is a static desktop), partly true for Laptop (as it gives you some bodily flexibility e.g. lying with your stomach on the floor and then reading the book) but not at all true practically for the tablets like iPad & Kindle (these are machines verymuch representing the physical books in both appearance & use).
