When I read Amaranth Borsuk’s chapter about papyrus scrolls in The Book, one thing grabbed my attention. She explains that Egyptian scribes sometimes used red ink to mark important words or to show the start of new sections (p. 24). At first, this sounded like a small detail. I realized it says something big, that reading has never been simple. From the beginning, people have been finding ways to guide readers and shape how they move through a text.

This idea reminded me of how many people read today for example on Kindle. You can use the highlight tool to save favorite passages. On Wattpad, readers leave comments in the margins or highlight moments they love. These marks catch my eye and slow me down, just like the red ink did for readers thousands of years ago. In a way, digital highlights are just a modern form of rubrication. Both show us where to stop, notice, and reflect.

I also found it interesting that the scroll itself shaped this practice. Papyrus scrolls didn’t have page numbers, chapters or covers. They were long, rolled-up sheets that snapped closed and had to be unrolled with both hands. That sounds clumsy compared to flipping pages in a book or even scrolling on a phone. But scribes came up with smart solutions, color red ink, headings, and marks that broke up the text. These tools made the scroll easier to use. They also turned it into more than just a place to store words, they made it an early kind of reading technology, or what Borsuk calls an “interface.”

Thinking about this makes me realize that reading has always been interactive. We often act like digital reading is brand new because of features like hyperlinks or highlights. But Borsuk’s passage shows that people were doing similar things long ago. Readers have always needed help moving through text and scribes have always given it to them.

For me, this is new knowledge I gained. It means that today’s digital reading is not the end of books but part of a much longer story. Just as Egyptians added red ink to guide readers, we use screens, colors, and comments to shape our reading now. The tools look different, but the habit is the same. Reading has always been about more than words it’s about how we mark, highlight, and share meaning.