According to the programmatic statement
published by a new European framework formed to study e-reading, “empirical evidence indicates that affordances of screen devices might
negatively impact cognitive and emotional aspects of reading.”
This may (or – more likely – may not) raise some curious questions related to
the following “causal” chain: if e-reading evokes a weaker affective response,
and neuroscientists say “meaning” comes primarily from this sort of
neurosomatic arousal, would an evocative text read from a screen have a less vibrant
meaning? Of course, the whole beauty of a screen-based life is that it can make
you immune to sensing such minor deficits – and asking such potentially
troubling questions.
