The first person to twist apart an Oreo, or sit backwards in a chair, or pretend a tennis racket was a guitar — visionaries who recognized that everyday objects used by the masses have higher callings.

I’ve joined them by turning my widescreen monitor vertically.

Special appearance in the background by Mashable's real-time news editor Brian Ries Image: Christina Ascani/Mashable

To be clear, I did not invent this idea. People have been rotating monitors 90 degrees since the widescreen was invented. I have just joined them as an acolyte of the modern Internet.

See also: 4 Tips for Navigating Your Desktop Like a Boss

We’re a left-to-right kind of culture, in general. Cavemen painted left to right and Medieval artists wove tapestries left to right. But at some point, the Internet began to grow vertically — into the feed mentality that dominates almost every website. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, it goes up and down. There's a reason for that.

It's only been a couple days, but I’m positive I won’t be going back. My work monitor is an HP LV2311 that measures 13.25 inches by 22 inches. Almost every site looks better; only a handful experience any problems fitting to the width of the screen.

For comparison’s sake, here’s how the New York Times website looks on my monitor in both vertical and horizontal modes.

Look at that whitespace. Look how much the vertical perspective gives me. It actually looks more like a newspaper.

But it’s not just surfing the web.

Writing: I like to be able to see as much of the page as possible while writing. It lets me look back quickly and see everything I’ve written, leaves space for notes at the bottom and generally gives me a better feel for the piece.

Workflow: I find it much easier to check out multiple windows when I can stack them, as opposed to placing them side by side. The narrowness forces me to open fewer tabs, which is a horrible habit that generally destroys my ability to accomplish tasks in a timely manner.

Social: I’m a relatively new Mashable hire, but just about the entire office has stopped by my desk to talk about the screen. I’m now "cool vertical screen guy." Everybody come look at how interesting I am and how brilliantly counterintuitive my ideas are!

It’s not all gravy. The top of my screen is a bit too high for my desk, and the bottom quarter of the screen does not seem to get much use. My relatively seamless transition between desk monitor and laptop screen is a little buggy.

And still, there are plenty of actions made for wider screens. Video clearly makes no sense on a vertical monitor, which is why I would never do this at home. (I don't do any video editing or graphic work, which I can only imagine would be harder on a vertical screen.) It's not ideal for gaming, unless you're playing Tetris or Dig Dug. These are aspects that take advantage of width, employ little to no scrolling and have programs designed for widescreen interfaces.

I also have the luxury of a dedicated monitor that runs off my laptop, giving me a (smaller) widescreen when I need it. If I were operating only on the desktop monitor, it would be a tough call. Right now, I'd still lean vertical.

The demands of my job — and I think many others — along with the evolution of the web dictate that more people give this adjustment a shot. Don't like it? You can always swivel your screen back to the dark ages.

If you're interested, here are a couple pointers on how to turn vertical.

You need a flat panel screen (sorry CRT devotees) and a stand that will allow you to turn the screen. If you need to buy one (like I did), try the Mount-It! I'm using.

Once you have your monitor oriented, you can switch the image on the screen in the computer's settings (some people may want to do this step before swiveling). It is usually called "portrait" on PC or "rotation" on Macs.