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This is an important discussion, here and via Nick Bilton at the Bits blog at the TimesMy own view is ...... I have a hunch that reading on screens is vastly inferior to reading on paper, and that reading on screens is not even reading in the old sense of the word, it is a new kind of reading mode, and I have dubbed it [screening] for now until a better word comes along, since we read on screens, I took the noun and verbed it into screening and I know I know, there are already multiple earlier meanings for screening, such screening a movie, or screening cancer patients or screening job applicants, but many words have earlier multiple meanings, we read the weather, we read faces, we read palms, we read clouds, we read maps, so both reading and screening have earlier multiple meanings. And my hunch is that future MRI scan studies will show that different parts of the brain light up when we read on paper compared to when we read on screens and that reading on paper is much better for such things as processing info, analyzing info, retaining info and emotionally taking in the info. Read the works of Anne Mangen and Maryanne Wolf and others in the field.
Okay, maybe , no, for sure, for certain, the word we settle on for screen-reading will not be screening. But a new word will arise, naturally, organically. With time.
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