Comments on: The Comfort and Chill: E.B. White and the iPad

By: Comfort vs. Chill: Lorne Daniels // Ben Moore Photographer

Comfort vs. Chill: Lorne Daniels // Ben Moore Photographer — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:04:44 +0000

[...] I photographed poet and essayist Lorne Daniel some time ago in the living room of his Victoria apartment. Daniels, who is originally from Central Alberta, moved to Vancouver Island last year in search of milder winters and has just begun writing a regular column for LifeAsAHuman. Check out his most recent essay here. [...]

By: Martha Farley

Martha Farley — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:21:15 +0000

Enjoyed reading your article. I too feel like you do about books! I could not see myself reading anything other than a book. Talking to my sixteen year old daughter about this topic recently she told me she couldn’t read anything else other than a book. I think if you are an avid reader books are cherished. And from what my daughter tells me the avid readers of the world are becoming fewer and fewer. My twentyone year old son would thrive using ipad. Links to the world in spits and spurts; are you kidding that would be great for him. I’m not trying to sound like an intellectual snob here I just think some people are more wired for the tech world than others!
Thanks for the article, it got me thinking about the written word and what it means to us today!

By: Laurie

Laurie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:22:00 +0000

I love falling into the words and ideas of a good book and savour those moments with nostalgia. I remember reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy pretty well non-stop as a teenage. Today – almost thirty years later – I still smile at the pure joy of that long ago weekend where there was nothing more important than devouring that story. There have been other stories and other weekends, but that first experience is a fond recollection!

Lorne, you are correct when you talk about the “linear-ness” of literature: while I enjoy the immediacy of a blog, it is hard to get lost in the words when I am busy connecting the words with the pictures or following the link that zings me off into a topic that I barely knew was connected.

Don’t get me wrong though. I love technology and spend hours of time at my computer at work and at home. Whether it saves me paper or not I can’t say because I am of a generation that still enjoys the tactile nature of reading from the thing in my hand…whether that becomes an IPad down the road remains to be seen!

By: Lorne Daniel

Lorne Daniel — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:28:22 +0000

Good points Sarah. Changing technologies do change our communications patterns; as you point out, person-to-person storytelling has no doubt diminished with the advent of printed stories, but the appetite for stories themselves has not.

As with any change, this one will open some doors and close others.

While I was preparing this piece for publication, I was noting a few web links and tempted to put in more. The irony didn’t escape me: writing about the joys of traditional linear text while thinking “gee, wouldn’t it be cool to insert a wren song sound clip here?”

Thanks for your comments.

By: Sarah Gignac

Sarah Gignac — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:09:41 +0000

I can’t say for certain, as I wasn’t around when this happened, but I’m sure some people worried about the impact the written word would have on their oral story traditions. And the invention of the printing press caused nostalgia galore. “Remember when only the privileged elite could afford books hand copied by blind monks? Now EVERYONE can get one!”

I’ve heard a lot of people be-moan the Ipad as the beginning of the death of the printed page. I think we’re planning the wake before the patient has died. Humans love stories. We seek them out, and if a new, easier way to share them comes around we embrace it. The Ipad is a reflection of how humans crave access to information. It’s not the cause – it’s the effect.

And as a lover of books (real books, printed on paper, with that inky wonderful smell) I really don’t see them being replaced by anything. But if a new toy can help cut back on our use of paper for disposable media (newspapers, magazines, etc) then the environmentalist in me says “Hurray!”.