Get your hands dirty, read newsprint

I grew up in a newspaper family — my father is a newspaper editor and my grandfather was a journalism professor, so maybe I’m just genetically hardwired to read newsprint.

My childhood was marked by election nights and shuttle launches spent sleeping on the floor of my dad’s office, dozing off while I listened to people type and chatter at a million miles an hour.

Maybe it’s coded into my DNA to flip through every newspaper I can get my hands on, circle the grammatical errors and then leave the copy sitting in plain sight so as to impress my friends and relatives with my grammatical prowess (or anal retentiveness, take your pick).

To this day, I usually have a newspaper in my backpack and ink on my hands. When one reads a newspaper, the ink transfers to one’s skin; people are naturally washable, so it’s no big deal.

Yet, last week when I set a copy of the Indiana Daily Student down on my kitchen counter, one of my roommates asked how I could bear to read a newspaper and get my hands dirty.

In my case, the answer is simple: I am a nerd and I need to see Sarah Palin’s newest one-liners spelled out in order to attempt comprehension.

Upon second thought, I realized that even non-nerds can indeed find practical uses for newspapers: Sudoku and calculus were made for each other. You never know when you may spill something.

If you start working on crossword puzzles now, you may be able to finish one by the time you’re 85. Holding a newspaper allows you to look busy when really you’re simply drinking coffee and avoiding writing that paper.

It’s a great surface for doodling. You can use it to practice free throws or even to test your hand as a milliner. The problem here is not that newsprint is a messy media, it’s that our generation has traded soap and water for hand sanitizer.

While online readers outnumber those of us who choose to get down and dirty with the print edition by nearly two to one, they may not glean the same benefits from their readership.

This hand sanitizer and iPad-reliant section of the population probably does not benefit from the personal hygiene habits demanded by ink smudges, either.According to the Scientific American, reading electronically requires greater cognitive energy.

This tires us out and leads us to remember less of what we read and to find the entire reading experience to be less rewarding. Wouldn’t you like to enjoy and actually remember the closing numbers for the DOW?

On a wholly unscientific aside, I would like to add that we look less intellectual when we are carrying around a device loaded with Angry Birds, Doodle Jump and Paper Toss than when we lug around Sunday’s New York Times.

So, whether you’re reading this online or under your desk in class, remember — there are far dirtier things on a college campus than newsprint.

That gum stuck to your chair or the mold growing on your shower walls would be nice beginners to that list.

­— marybald@indiana.edu