Reading


It's bad form to comment on an article that one finds so annoying that you couldn't stand to finish it, but I'm going to do it anyway.  I don't know who the hell Andrew Piper is, but he has written an article on why e-reading isn't really reading, because, apparently, Augustine was converted by reading a book and  the tactile sensation of the paper is evidently the most important sensory input one gets from the page.
Aristotle regarded touch as the most elementary sense. It is how we begin to make our way in the world, to map it, measure it, and make sense of it. Touch is the most self-reflexive of senses, an insight affirmed by the German researcher David Katz, who established the field of touch studies in the early 20th century based on his work with World War I amputees. Through the feeling of touch, we learn to feel ourselves. Touch is a form of redundancy, enfolding more sensory information into what we see and therefore what we read. It makes the words on the page richer in meaning and more multidimensional. It gives words a geometry.
Pretentious claptrap.  My near vision is not so great, and hence I nearly always read on computer screen, Kindle, or phone.

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