My husband just walked in as I was browsing SDMB on my iPad. I said, “Let my show you why I love Straight Dope.” I scrolled down the thread, and my husband observed, “It’s all words.” Then I pulled up Facebook, and said “Let me show you why I don’t like Facebook.” I scrolled down the News Feed, and he observed, “It’s all pictures.”
I love that my husband could so quickly intuit why I love what I love. And, in an Internet world that seems to be reverting back to the picture books I read when I was three, I love that there’s still a corner of the Internet where substance outweighs flashy graphics.
I don’t really get the meme that words are magically more adult, erudite, and sophisticated here. Most research-level publications have quite a few figures and pictures in them, and this goes back quite a while. Illustrations are a cornerstone of advanced communication. Not all pictures are lolcats and selfies.
It’s true that pictures aid understanding quickly and greatly. As someone once pointed out to Richard Feynman, an illustration of a car’s crankshaft is much clearer than a description. But also note that pictures preceded writing by thousands of years and children look at pictures before they learn to read.
Are words inherently “more adult, erudite, and sophisticated”? No. Just look at what BS [insert name of your most hated politician/entertainer/media figure/etc.] says. OTOH, the relatively limited nature of words forces you to be more precise and complete.
When I got my degree I swore I would never read a book without pictures again. Fortunately, Archaeology pretty much requires pictures, so I didn’t have to read many before graduation, either.
