Image: Web-camera capture of my Korean homepage
The experience of reading something online is multisensual experience. In reading online, we have much more freedom and space to alter the experience.
We could change the size of the text, or read it while we are checking our email on the same screen. When we encounter certain information in the text we want to know more about, we can research about it instantly, and come back to the original text with enhanced background knowledge.
We could play music in the background, if that helps one concentrate. We could take that text to other places, or check the comments to see how other people found the reading.
In this end reading becomes not a private, introspective experience, but a kind of shared experience with others.
Reading a news article often leads to open conversation built up by the comments left on the page by people from various places.
Personally my experience of reading online often gave me the impression of certain lightness. It could have been caused by the efficiency that internet offers, but I think it was also caused by the limitation of the information that is available. -Almost like touching the surface of the water lightly with the big toe, before breaking into the water. Just a light touch, and no more.
When I get into the moment when I get completely absorbed in the article, I find myself writing it down on a piece of paper, while I am reading it. When I feel the need to keep the words, I have to write it down, so I can carry it, or store it somewhere, where I can go and take it out with my hands.
I find it interesting when my friends take out a Macbook instead of a notebook when they need to make a note of something. A friend who is studying composing, found it delightful and useful, that his Macbook in fact let him take a note of 'melodies' when he is outdoor, using a program that tranforms keyboard into different instruments. Or else, he could simply hum the melody to his Macbook and it will record it into musical notes.
Reading and writing have for a long time became chiseling tools for carving human culture and history. For a long time reading and writing required specific places and specific objects. Now the text we read and the tools we write with exists out there, in the world of internet(think about Googledoc, Dropbox, Blogs and emails).
We could resume reading the same text today at home tomorrow at work.
What does it mean? This newly created freedom in reading and writing?
I will write more about it during next week, with the help of the book 'The History of Reading' by Alberto Manguel.
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