Whitespace has always been expensive in print. Paper is not only expensive in monetary and ecological terms but it is heavy and it has even been rare. A consequence of these and other related factors has led to the longstanding tendency by everyone everywhere to cram as much text onto each page as possible. This has become our norm, this is the way we expect to see text – ‘wall to wall’ on the page. However producing text on screen has a fundamentally different character that allows a complete revision of this optimum paper-packing practice because the factors that forced the implementation of that practice are not relevant on screen because on screen

whitespace is completely free

you can use as much as it as you like
with zero penalty

this allows us to use whitespace
as a new tool to ‘chunk’ text
much more effectively

making it more readable
more understandable
and more easily edited

poets use whitespace
to ‘chunk’ text
into a ‘shape’ they like

I propose
we start doing the same thing
with screen text

the benefits are many:
it is much more restful to the eye
it is easier to read and understand and
it gives us a potent new punctuation tool
which greatly facilitates editing

therefore I suggest that we adopt
or at least accept
the proposal
to utilize the free whitespace capacity
of on screen text
as a tool to help ‘chunk’ text

one of the weirdest things
I have found from this practice
is that I often start spontaneously
‘speed-reading’

this is particularly prominent
when the chunking is done
on the basis
of single concept
per line

I would agree with you Rob.

I endeavour to space my statements out and must admit to getting irritated when someone presents an opinion piece in the manner you describe as 'wall to wall'.

I notice of all the posters,
Yabby has consistently presented
narrow passages of text
which makes their reading a breeze..

I will try and take up your proposal
for the benefit of all
(although many are probably happier
not to read my posts at all LOL)

The problem is that OL has a fixed width format, so if you make your browser window narrower the text columns don't get any narrower. So you can't 'customise' the appearance as easily.

I personally have no problem with the wide columns.