This is how text looks like in TeX:

This persists and looks about the same even when I print it out.
By comparison, here's how the text looks in Word (Calibri):
When reading the TeX paragraph, I feel like the letters are swimming before my eyes and can't be focused on. Is this font style on purpose, perhaps because it's easier to read in the long run, or is that an error in my configuration?
This happens even with the example here: http://mally.stanford.edu/~sr/computing/latex-example.html

