From Page to Screen - WRAP: Warwick Research Archive Portal ...

electronic environment differ from print. Could it not be argued that the mental reading
and writing processes are independent from their physical realisations and only
marginally affected by the physical reality ofthe resulting text? After all, a shift from print
to digital text does not change the paradigm of expression; despite the change in the
technology ofwriting, the mode of representation is still text, unlike other technological
developments, most notably film and TV or, more recently, Virtual Reality, which
replace a mediated text-representation by a seemingly unmediated visual immediacy.
However, while it may be useful to distinguish the mental writing processes from the
actual physical actofwriting in order to examine the cognitive processes ofthe former in
their complexity, one does have to acknowledge that the physicalities ofdifferent writing
and reading media in which these cognitive processes are taking place do profoundly
influence them and have to be taken into account.
Writingin different media
Writing on material1ike stone (which is extremely hard work and where it is impossible
to correct mistakes or change the text) requires very careful planning and the actual
writing process, the externalisation of thoughts, is only the last stage at the end of a
nearly complete internalised mental writing process. The less labour-intensive, the less
precious the material used and the more effortless changes can be made (i.e. with
material like papyrus compared to stone, or paper compared to papyrus), the more the
actual physical writing shifts forward and may blend with the mental writing process.
The computer has further supported this development and for most users of word
processing programs writinghabits have changed so that the actual writing coincides to a
large extent with the mental writing process. Thoughts can be written down
immediately, and then changed, moved around, expanded and deleted infinitely and
with great ease. With the actual writing starting earlier and the computer allowing for
greater flexibility, the feeling of "completeness" gets increasingly deferred. "As
inscribed clay tablets dried, the writer in ancient times had to feel the work was
complete. In contrast, a writer who is using a computer tends to feel that the process is
Chapter I - page 4