Charlie Glowacki
Professor Meehan
Final Project!
Since the creation of the computer and the Internet, the world of information has crossed into a new frontier. The electronic revolution changed the way people are entertained and the way that people gather information. Books and newspapers have not been abandoned and changed into movies and news television but there has been a great shift in attention. Electronic devices such as the Amazon Kindle or the Ipad could soon have a large impact on the future of the paperback book because they allow more than one book stored in a much smaller space and with using fewer resources. This doesn’t mean that people will stop writing but the average bookstore could very well be non-existent. On the other hand, it does mean that all books no matter the size or how new will cost ten dollars. Newspapers and magazines could potentially be one hundred percent free. Books and other forms of literature cost less in their electronic form because fewer resources are put into the creation of the object. These developments could lead to a rise in new readers and the amount of reading being done, greatly benefiting the literary community. For example, the transport of one kindle could substitute as transport of hundreds and hundreds of books to remote places around the world.
Critics of the electronic revolution argue that we as a people are becoming less intelligent as we stray farther away from traditional writing and closer to electronic media as primary forms of education and entertainment. I agree with those critics who recognize a serious issue, but I also believe that condemning all electronic literature and entertainment is an act displaying ignorance to obvious benefits of electronics.
My view of reading and writing throughout my academic career and my private life has changed almost on a yearly basis. At times I love reading and writing and can’t wait to do more of it but at other times I despise it with a passion because of the difficulties that it places upon me. Very few times have I enjoyed reading in my academic career but the times that it has been enjoyable have left me eager to read more intellectual books. When I read To Kill a Mockingbird in my eighth grade English class, I wanted more. I wanted much more. I felt like I had somehow become a smarter person after reading that book. Whenever I read a book now or write something, I try to gain something from it. Of course I read for pleasure and enjoyment, but what really keeps me coming back to books and poems year after year is how they can stimulate the brain to think in ways that television and video games cant and will never be able to. Reading The Hobbit was the first time that I can remember being fully immersed into an alternate reality. It felt real in there. At the young age I was at, I was very impressionable and the words on the pages somewhat magically took control of my mind in a way that I cannot fully explain. This feeling isn’t as strong as it was years ago in the sense that when I read a book now I realize that some things inside a novel are imaginary but still I sometimes let myself my imagination go beyond the limits of reality.
Reading and writing will always be a great friend of mine, but since I have been here at college I have lost touch with this friend. I don’t write poems anymore and I don’t read in my spare time. I need to get back to the point I was at one year ago when every day I read something that stimulated my mind in some way. Once I get back to that point, my college life will be much less stressful. I gain so much from books and I always forget that. When push comes to shove, often times technology wins the fight for control over my mind. Mindless drivel that stimulates the mind in pointless ways wins over intellectual material or novels. To blame is not Benjamin Franklin who created electricity but the constant exposure to television and videogames. Such things are not immoral or malicious in any way, but they can prove to be detrimental to the mind. Usually when I finish a book, I don’t have another one sitting on my desk that I can pick up right away. What I do have on that desk is an Xbox 360 that I can turn on and play no matter how many times I have played it. With the kindle, my passion for reading rarely fades away and is lost to oblivion because I can instantly download another book without leaving my room.
Sven Birkets would argue that the readers experience would change in a negative way with the switch to electronic texts. His arguments are valid as they do raise some serious questions but those questions have answers. I grew up learning to love the feel of a book; specifically the physical characteristics of the book itself. Birkets as well as myself have grown to become attached to that feeling. I myself love opening up a book that I have had a decade long relationship with. It’s traveled to different countries with me as if the book was my best friend. The next generation might lose that feeling but that doesn’t mean the feeling that they get from reading an electronic text would have a lesser impact on their life. I notice a significant change in feel when I switch from reading a book on my Kindle to a paperback but it’s not a bad change at all. It’s just a change in surfacing of the written word. If he applies his idea of hating all electronic media to the Ipad, then he would be saying the spread of knowledge and information around the world is not something he values as important. To give a community of poor people access to a large library of reading materials would be an expensive and challenging task. Hundreds or even thousands of books would have to be loaded onto airplanes or ships for transport which means that a lot of resources would be required. With the electronic book, this endeavor could become a common practice that involves much less time and effort.
Some others like Birkerts also say that it would be an abomination to see the reading community change from reading paper books to reading on the an electronic screen. There could be downsides to this change because it is believed by health specialists that watching an electronic screen for a prolonged period of time damages eyesight but despite the health risk, I would still have to disagree with anyone who believes the invention of the electronic book to be hindrance to the writing community. My reasoning behind this belief is that the Ipad can give the user access to a never-ending library of literary texts of all kinds that beforehand would be almost impossible to imagine. A massive restructuring of how information and literature travels has just recently occurred and it needs to be embraced by all that value the importance of the written word. This restructuring has allowed publishers of all types of texts spread their works at a much quicker pace. Recently published books or articles can be read instantaneously almost anywhere in the world with just the click of a button. If a volcano erupts halfway across the world, I would still hear about it the very day of its occurrence. Sooner or later, I would probably hear about the volcano within just an hour of the eruption. Information could potentially travel faster than the speed of light one day. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but the metaphor is important. The electronic world does not have to be looked upon as shameful by those that lived in less technologically advanced societies. It should be looked upon with the same exuberance as an event like the American Revolution. The electronic “revolution” is more of a blessing than a curse.
Why should the Ipad and the Kindle be viewed as crimes to the literary community? The user is reading the same books that have impacted history but only by different means than our ancestors. We don’t have to cut down trees for the purpose of making paper! If only the same idea could apply to wood being used as a means for warmth or shelter. Publishing companies no longer have to pay companies around the world to cut down trees in the wilderness. Isn’t that such a great idea? It would be a sin to not take this opportunity to stop the destruction of trees because of the facts that we now know of the benefits that trees have on our environment.
