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It's crossed my mind lately just how much of the internet seems to be video these days. While it's entirely possible this is just me getting older and slipping on the nostalgia goggles of "back in my day", it does feel like reading much of anything while browsing online is becoming much less necessary. I struggle to find guides that are text based, which I prefer due to being such a fast reader, as it seems like every other guide that pops up in search is a youtube video.
A part of me misses the days when most spooky content/ story telling stuff was written, as that's another thing that's mostly transferred over to video format. ARGs analogue horror, all those spooky game playthroughs, too, I guess. Text based stuff is still there, but it's no longer the norm.
Part of it is changing technology, I know. Text is cheap to send and receive as data but not as inherently engaging as visual mediums, while video eats up more bandwidth but is easier to interact with as a viewer. As computers have gotten more powerful, and data has gotten cheaper, there's much less incentive, as a customer and as a company, not to put everything in its most easily digested, attention-grabbing form.
It's been a time at work for me, so I haven't been doing much on the personal end of things. I'm still playing around with my fountain pen, mostly using it to write very rough versions of my more headcannon-y and fan-essay stuff, mainly so I don't have to unload and re-load my typewriter roller, which is a real pain.
Ironically, the fact that it's a pain is a big part of what helps keep me focused on one thing at a time when I'm using it. You can easily switch between tabs or documents when writing on a computer, and pulling out a fresh sheet of paper to play around on, telling yourself "just for a little while" as you work on something else, since it's so easy to switch back, but with a typewriter, you're kind of committed.
You roll your paper on, and you write to the end of the page, and while removing and re-setting it is is easy enough - albeit a bit fiddly to re-align when it's partly written - it takes just long enough that you feel compelled to commit to what you're doing.
For me, at least, it really helps cut down on distractability, just so long as I can properly sit down and do it.
A part of me misses the days when most spooky content/ story telling stuff was written, as that's another thing that's mostly transferred over to video format. ARGs analogue horror, all those spooky game playthroughs, too, I guess. Text based stuff is still there, but it's no longer the norm.
Part of it is changing technology, I know. Text is cheap to send and receive as data but not as inherently engaging as visual mediums, while video eats up more bandwidth but is easier to interact with as a viewer. As computers have gotten more powerful, and data has gotten cheaper, there's much less incentive, as a customer and as a company, not to put everything in its most easily digested, attention-grabbing form.
It's been a time at work for me, so I haven't been doing much on the personal end of things. I'm still playing around with my fountain pen, mostly using it to write very rough versions of my more headcannon-y and fan-essay stuff, mainly so I don't have to unload and re-load my typewriter roller, which is a real pain.
Ironically, the fact that it's a pain is a big part of what helps keep me focused on one thing at a time when I'm using it. You can easily switch between tabs or documents when writing on a computer, and pulling out a fresh sheet of paper to play around on, telling yourself "just for a little while" as you work on something else, since it's so easy to switch back, but with a typewriter, you're kind of committed.
You roll your paper on, and you write to the end of the page, and while removing and re-setting it is is easy enough - albeit a bit fiddly to re-align when it's partly written - it takes just long enough that you feel compelled to commit to what you're doing.
For me, at least, it really helps cut down on distractability, just so long as I can properly sit down and do it.
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