Difference between writing and content

Difference between writing and content
- from the Guardian "Will e-books spell the end of great writing?" by Tim Adams

• is reading from a screen the same experience as reading from a page?
• is writing for a digital medium the same thing as writing for print?

"A world that constantly reflects back to you your own wishes, through a computer that seems to be your friend, will inevitably enhance your sense of self, and the unwarranted belief that your views have a weight and authority.

• If there is a growth industry on the internet it is in opinion; the risk-free interactivity that Weizenbaum observed at the genesis of the technology has evolved in subtle ways.
• One of the most obvious and curious aspects of individual engagement with a virtual world, whether in a blog, or a chat room or on a discussion thread, is that a large proportion of it is conducted anonymously, or through an opaque alter ego.
• The Internet gives a greater illusion of proper interactivity with other human voices. It is the best of all worlds: in cyberspace you can say anything you want and never be held to account for it. Nothing is at stake. Any writer who has never come up against an editor, or a reader, can always feel himself a genius.

"Stephen Fry's now famous anti-blogging diatribe is worth remembering for the following observation:

• "I don't know about you but whenever I read a blog I do not let my eye drop below half the screen in case I accidentally hit the bit where the comments reside. Of all the stinking, sliding, scuttling, weird, entomological creatures that inhabit the floor of the internet those comments on blogs are the most unbearable, almost beyond imagining."
• The unremitting tone of that "snark", it often seems, is born not out of genuine anger, but of the experience of half-engagement in the world, of shouting at someone who can't shout back, of interacting without feeling vulnerable to another person.

"For the time being the Kindles and the rest are standalone devices, but it will surely not be long before they and the thousands of books they contain are bundled up with all the other must-have applications into a single computer which will mediate our lives: more undifferentiated text to match our own mood.

• "Technologies," Sherry Turkle points out, "are never just tools, they are evocative objects. They cause us to see ourselves, and our world, differently."
• Will anyone who is "always on" have the concentration to read the great social novels – those ultimate "interactions" with the world – on a screen? Will anyone be able to see far enough beyond themselves to write one?