Re: Too many printouts

[cph@wiley.csusb.edu (Carol Haviland)]

Mickey--I am relieved to know that the net-reading problem is not
generational!  Looking at it rhetorically, I wonder whether we subject
anything that we consider ephemeral (net-writing, purple notices in
mailboxes, junk mail) to the same kind of preliminary screening.  Just as I
quickly sort through my paper mail each morning, I also "flip" through my
e-mail.  I toss the paper to which I don't wish to return, and I trash the
e-mail that can be dispatched quickly, printing out anything I want to spend
more time on--which generates lots of print.  

Is this a habit that needs re-thinking rather than simply extending reading
habits to new forms?
Carol
>
>> all-consuming hobby), I'll print it out or save it as a file to be 
>> printed later.  I just don't have patience to read screenful after 
>> screenful of text, graphics, song, and/or dance.
>> 
>> So I'm wondering just what it is about the medium that disturbs me so, 
>> and I'm wondering if I'm alone in such feelings.  How many of you folks 
>> will zap messages that require you to hit the space bar or whatever 
>> mechanism is required to advance one screen full of text?  And I'm 
>
>> 	Neal Lerner
>> 	nlerner@acs.bu.edu
>> 
>I hereby add my name to that list, however long or short, of those who
>don't deal well with long strings of text online. I haven't been able
>to pinpoint what my difficulty is, but I find myself printing out
>reams of notes and creating piles of paper on my desk. (If anyone
>similarly afflicted has any suggestions for how to organize all the
>printouts of valuable WCenter postings, I'd be inordinately grateful
>for any suggestions.) I had assumed this was a generational thing in
>that for those of us who were weaned on printed text, the scrolling
>screen is difficult to absorb. I really have to print out in order to
>read more carefully. But why? It's not merely habit. I've worked at
>trying to read more online, but I'm still an inveterate zapper, as
>Neal describes, and long strings of text online are still difficult to
>absorb. Eric, care to offer us a twelve-step program?
>
>-- 
>Mickey Harris
>harrism@mace.cc.purdue.edu
>
>