My Laptop Has No Smell

On scent and substance

The thing that strikes me each Monday, when I pull this typewriter out of her case to bang out this thing I’m doing is the smell. It is a distinct aroma of machine oil, slightly sour and sweet, with a top note of carbon from the ribbon. There’s also something metallic there, though I doubt I can smell the keys.

My laptop has no smell. Nor does my iPhone, or any of its apps. Digital is inherently odorless, a byproduct of clean enclosed circuits, which by necessity need to be shielded from the scents of the air. I don’t even recall floppy discs having a smell or Nintendo games. Digital smells like nothing.

That shouldn’t matter. Smell shouldn’t matter. A typewriter is not a candle, piece of fruit, or diaper. Scent has obvious benefit with food, fragrance, decor, and even medicine, but who cares if the machine you write on smells?

It turns out, actually, that a lot of people do. One of the things I am asked about frequently, is the reason for the continued relevance of books in the world today. The ebook has existed for close to two decades, and is pretty perfect, functionally speaking. It is clear, powerfully simple, can get a book up in a second, and delivers the same information as its paper equivalent with no cost in trees, energy, ink, transport, and money. You get the same ideas. The same words. AND you can bring just one on vacation and read it backlit in bed, without bugging a loved one late at night.

Yet, even today, ebooks are outnumbered by sales of print books by 10:1, a margin that has barely changed in a decade. There is no good logical, economic reason for this. It transcends ages and geography and income. Nine out of ten readers prefer to read books on paper. The most cited reasons?

Smell. Feel. Sight. Simply put, we like the way a book smells, despite all logical reasons why we shouldn’t. Humans have senses. Five of ‘em! We constantly forget that, as we push forth a future of clean odorless tech (VR, AI, etc). But smell matters to us, because we cannot separate it from who we are. We smell and we feel something, and those feelings shape our behaviors. Smell still matters, and will keep on mattering as long as our noses work. Maybe I should commission a line of analog perfumes and candles. Eau de vinyl?