Books, computers -- selfish?

For the first time in what I hope will become a more regular thing, I posted a short essay on the Kenyon Review's blog yesterday. For my inaugural post, I tried to be all humble and unambitious-like. My topic? I tried to articulate yet another way to look at the whole debate between print and electronic media. (Like I said, unambitious-like....)

I would wager that for most readers, deciding how to read something consists of a messy and porous matrix of deeply personal factors. These factors might include a person’s age, the text being read, one’s comfort with technology, and environmental principles. In other words, we seem no closer to justifying either side of the argument than saying, “It’s just how I prefer to read.” Which is no justification at all.

So it recently occurred to me that we could frame the question around something a little more abstract, yet possibly arrive at clearer reasoning: selfishness. Namely, which platform–print media or electronic media–is more selfish, and which is more selfless and giving?

At one point I mention a reading I attended at Kenyon College as a senior, when David Foster Wallace visited in 2000. (I've avoided mentioning anything here about Wallace's sad passing, because, well, what could I really say about it?) Anyway, turns out another Kenyon student who was there that night also wrote about it recently.