Email as Art?

Daniel Henninger comments on the NEA report in his Wonder Land column in today's Wall Street Journal, blaming the decline in reading literature on the Internet!  It's true that, counterintuitively, the research revealed that lit readers watch as much or even more TV than nonreaders, but I found no support for the notion that being online reduces reading paper products. 
 
He credits the 'net with reviving communication among friends, however, I cannot support email as literary contribution. If anything, email only accelerates the rate of communication at the cost of quality and quantity.  Even if you lump together all the emails to a friend in a given period of time, the result is not a coherent communication.  It's more like choppy conversation.
 
I find it difficult to connect Internet use with the decline in reading hard copy, because I print out much of what I run across online. Onscreen reading is terribly hard on the eyes. Mine blur and burn after only a couple of hours.  Any article more than a page in length is printed out for me to peruse in the pleasure of my lounge chair -- while the TV blares away in the background.  Admittedly this leads to my brain sometimes receiving mixed messages.  Lounging in front of the TV is also one of my two favorite places to read books.  The TV doesn't even have to be turned on, but it usually is.

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