Saw this sticker on someone’s computer at my local coffee shop and laughed.
My life as a confirmed technology nerd is countered by my love of physical books. Unlike my wife, I can’t read books online: I comprehend less, I retain less, I don’t enjoy it. I mostly read technology and history books, and perhaps that’s different than reading light fiction, but even with fiction I prefer physical over digital.
Same with newspapers: when flipping and folding the pages to read whatever article I started with, I find my eyes wandering over neighboring articles that are unrelated but just happen to be nearby, and their subject and content – while interesting – are often unrelated and not anywhere near my top-of-mind. And while randomly stumbling into interesting articles is possible online, it’s often not quite as random, especially when sites intend to present you articles they think you’d be interested in. Well, if I’m not aware of what I’m interested in, how are they?
Same with maps: give me a large map laid out on a table – and I mean large, like 4’x6′ – where you walk around the table getting a feel for the overall context and then zoom in with a magnifying glass where needed. Even with a 32″-4K monitor, zooming in means you lose context, zooming out means you lose details, you lose context. And you end up constantly zooming in and out, which is slowing, distracting, and distracts from enjoying the map. [That said, perhaps an 8K monitor is needed.]
And finally, I keep notebooks: lists of tasks, notes from works, travel planning, job hunting. At times I’ve attempted to use something like Microsoft OneNote, but inevitably peters off after a while and I return to the notebooks.
So go ahead, laugh, perhaps you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but there are definitely advantages, whether you want to admit it or not.
