How Typing Affected Nietzsche’s Consciousness

This article on the MIT Press Reader describes how it appears the act of typing affected the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s thinking.

When Nietzsche bought a typewriter he noticed that his writing changed, as did his productivity. He was going blind and the typewriter meant that he could continue to work. But writing is a demanding activity because the act of making marks on paper means that thought needs to be applied to the action as well as the meaning being conveyed by words. To most of us that is an automatic process but nowadays, when “writing” actually means “typing”, that thought process has changed. Today we press keys rather than performing cursive scripts and it appears that has altered our modern world and our thoughts.

The article, sent in by a reader, tells how the philosopher noticed the change in his writing, but so did the critics of his work. Technology has its place but maybe we lose something in not writing any longer. Fascinating!