Print This for Extra Comprehension

5 min readJun 24, 2024

June 23, 2024, 8:53 pm
Filed under: Creative Process, technology, writing | Tags: books, digital materials, paper, reading, reading comprehension, screens, transitional moment

A patron of mine sent me a message about receiving my zine, explaining that her husband found it easier to read the paper version because he didn’t really read so much on the computer. I said I understood and felt similarly — that I much preferred paper to reading on-line. Which is funny, really, because I publish most of my stuff on the internet.

This exchange made me think of a moment of transition that happened at one of my jobs years ago. It started like this: I’d been working at BAM as a teaching artist where one of my main gigs was doing pre-show prep workshops. Whenever we’d get assigned a show, we’d receive a packet of information about the show, information about the school, our contracts, and if it was available, a videotape of the show we were going to teach. It had gone like this for quite a few years when the program manager (maybe the third one I’d worked with at that point) started to email us PDF s of show information instead. And this is the moment of transition. I noticed, when I received this information this way, that I did not read as carefully, that my understanding was less. I found it hard to concentrate on what was on the screen in a way that had never been an issue with the paper packets. So I spoke to the program manager and I made a request to continue to receive the paper versions of these documents instead of the digital versions.

I felt a little like a teaching artist diva asking for that but I really did notice how much it impacted the quality of my work. The good news was that it was such a transitional moment that my program manager honored my request and sent me the paper versions for a while.

I went away to grad school and by the time I came back, there were no more paper packets to be had, and no more videotapes, just links. Somewhere between 2005 and 2008, theatre education went entirely digital. (Except for the contracts. We signed those, in person, at meetings.)

The thing of it is, it’s not that my ability to read on my computer (or iPad or iPhone) has improved, I just have gotten accustomed to not reading as carefully. I still read better, more thoroughly, with more attention on paper. I take in more details on paper. I process better. I have much more patience. On a screen, I’m always in a hurry. I skim more aggressively. My internal voice reads things there like this: “Yeah, yeah, infrastructure, sexism, oh ha ha, joke! Fact, fact…why is this article so long? Is there anything else here I absolutely need to know? Fact. Fact. I’m just gonna skip these last three paragraphs.”

On screens, I usually just get the gist. On paper, I actually read most of the time. And I read much more expansively on paper. Pretty much every magazine I receive, I read cover to cover, even if I don’t think I’ll be interested. On screen, if I don’t think I’ll be interested, I do not bother. On screen, I only read a handful of things that I am sure will interest me or give me some kind of benefit. Back before everything was digital, I used to print out text to read it, to accommodate my reading skills. Now I don’t bother. I just read haphazardly.

I recognize that as a writer who publishes on the internet that many people don’t read these words as carefully as I’d like. I write them carefully, with pen and paper and my full attention. Then type them, later, with a lot less attention. Then publish them, with even less, into their home on the internet where I’m guessing many people read as carelessly as I do. Not everyone, of course. One of my patrons reads my work so carefully, she’ll often send me copy edits. But given my own experience, I cannot expect that any of this hits everyone fully. I don’t take that personally. It’s not like I have a different way of sharing my work (well, except the zine). There is not really a viable alternative to reading and writing on the internet. Many of the magazines or newspapers I used to read are only available on-line now. There is no kind program manager of the internet willing to accommodate my preferences of reading paper. But I do feel like it’s important to acknowledge that a lot of us aren’t reading or taking in information as carefully or attentively as we could. There is a loss in this world of more and more things to read onscreen.

Words on paper, set there by pen or printer, are just more memorable. A friend sent me a letter recently and I remember what’s in it more than any email I’ve received. And I guess, if you want me to read something carefully, go ahead and print that out for me, if you don’t mind. I’m a diva for the printed word.