re: I print websites like a fucking boomer
Are you allowed to reply to your own posts? I'm not scared of the Bear police!
I received a lot of really good comments (ok, maybe 6 emails, that's a lot for me) on the post I wrote the other day. The truth is I didn't think about it too seriously, I just thought it was a funny thing I did, but all the feedback I received made me reflect on why I do it a bit more. Here are some thoughts:
- My main issue with screen devices is that there's an interface between the words and my eyes, and my brain can't seem to ignore it. For things I really want to focus on, enjoy and study, I feel like paper is the least amount of interface possible.
- The tactility of paper, being able to write, highlight, cut and paste, doodle on the margins, adds a lot to the experience for me.
- I am on a personal quest of removing unnecessary layers of technology and complexity from my life, spending less time in front of a screen and more time outside and in front of words. I am consciously adding friction in strategic parts of my life because I realised convenience and automation (among other things I'm saving for my non-existing therapist) make my brain operate on auto-pilot.
- Jailbreaking a Kindle and syncing RSS feeds to it or using this awesome CLI tool robotamerica made are great ideas, but to me they are additive solutions (solving tech problems with more tech), while I'm in a more subtractive mood these days. I completely understand where it comes from, I was a software dev not too long ago, but I'm not in that mindset at the moment.
- I'm not printing that much stuff. Good old Cmd+P does the job for me.
Related reading: The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen