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From: NRCGSH@RITVAX.BITNET (Norman Coombs)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Paper versus Computer Monitors
Message-ID: <1794@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 30 Mar 88 02:21:03 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
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The Digest has been running a prolonged discussion of the relative
merits of paper and the computer monitor.  It seems clear that
at least some part of this is a matter of personal preference.
Others suggest that the views are entirely culturally determined.
I suspect that the latter is partially true, but we will
only be able to know after the passage of more time.


 Many years ago I began introducing a lot of video into
my history class.  Students were to watch it on their own in
the library using video players.  About a third of the class
objected in evaluations that this method was impersonal.  However,
within half a dozen years this objection vanished totally.
I noticed that my own children who were coming up through
the school system at the same time were being expected to use
audios and videos on their own for independent study.  It seems
that those students who grew up accustomed to working with
that technology no longer found it alienating.  (Unless they
had become so alienated that they did not know the difference.)

 In another 10 years, we will have a new group of young
adults who grew up reading from the CRT.  This will tend to
weed out the factor of cultural conditioning.  Whatever
preferences are left will be more likely to reflect personal
rather than social factors.  You might guess that I am a historian
and am just passing the buck of decision-making to "father
time".  Well, you are right.

Norman Coombs