📑 Can “Distraction-Free” Devices Change the Way We Write?

Bookmarked Can “Distraction-Free” Devices Change the Way We Write?  by Julian Lucas (The New Yorker)

The digital age enabled productivity but invited procrastination. Julian Lucas on why writers are rebelling against their word processors.

From literary Rube Goldberg workflows, distraction-free text editors and e-ink tablets, Julian Lucas dives into the world of distraction-free writing. He unpacks applications and devices such as iA Writer, Ulysses, Bear, Word ‘focus mode’, Hanx Writer, OmmWriter and Freewrite Smart Typewriter and reMarkable. All along, Lucas explores the friction between paper and computers, and the benefits and negatives associates with each.

The most venerable form of literary friction may be the scratch of pen on paper. Computers have largely failed to replace the original focussed word processor, which is not only cheap and abundant but uniquely conducive to the forms of spatial thinking—arrows, scribbles, doodles, and diagrams—that writing often demands. Physical mark-making also quickens the memory, which is one reason that handwritten notes are so much easier to recall than their typed equivalents. Yet paper can also fail us in the heat of composition, when the time comes to search notes and splice sentences. The two indispensable systems square off. For years, I’ve switched between them in what can feel like a war of attrition: scribbling until my hand cramps, typing until dazed by the screen, and wasting time with scanners to translate between mediums.

Julian Lucas https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/20/can-distraction-free-devices-change-the-way-we-write

Personally, I think the challenge for a clean workflow is something that everyone grapples with. Having a distraction-free space to write is central to that.

This also has me thinking about Clive Thompson’s dive into productivity tools and Chris Aldrich’s exploration of posting handwritten notes.

I am also reminded of Marc Scott’s appeal against Word from a few years ago:

So please… pretty please… please with bells on top, borders of apples and the word PLEASE written in bright blue Word-Art; think next time you want to send a Word document by email or put one on your website, think about your recipient. Could you use the body of the email or a page on the site? Perhaps you could save the file as a .txt, .rtf or PDF. Just spare a thought for those of us that choose not to use Microsoft Word, and respect our right not to do so.

Marc Scott http://coding2learn.org/blog/2014/04/14/please-stop-sending-me-your-shitty-word-documents/