The Ipad
Since the creation of the computer and the Internet, the world of information has crossed into a new frontier. The electronic revolution has 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 in our near future. Some would say that something such as this could never happen or 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. Despite the health risk, I would still have to disagree with anyone who believes the invention of the electronic book is a bad thing.
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 be viewed as crime 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.
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. The Fellowship of the Ring can brighten my mood anytime anywhere because I have so many fond memories of being absorbed into those same pages. 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. Books cost less in their electronic form because fewer resources are put into the creation of the book. Maybe that could be viewed as a bad thing because royalties for authors would initially go down but I would argue that in the future the royalties would level out in response to an overall increase in readers.
All books, all sizes, ten dollars. Newspapers and magazines; one hundred percent free. Advertisements will employ adequately. No need to charge the one dollar per copy to cover the publishing costs because there would virtually be none. The road by which the word travels is no longer one hundred miles long uphill. The words can just teleport to the end of the road in a split second. I wish my life could be that easy.
Autobiographical Wreading
by
Charlie Glowacki
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.
When my father found out that his favorite series of books were being made into movies, he started reading them all over again so that he had the story fresh in his mind when he went to the movie theatre. It had been fifteen years since my father touched the Fellowship of the Ring and when I saw him reading that book for the first time I could feel that there was something special about it. He told me that I had to read The Hobbit before I could read the others so I did and I immediately fell in love with Middle Earth. 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.
When I was in grade school, my peers and I were forced to read every day for about an hour before lunch in a class period that was called “Griffin Reading.” This class period turned me off from reading because I remember never being able to pay attention to my book. I couldn’t read when there were a bunch of kids around me. Most of the kids would sit and read quietly but the few that goofed off every day were enough to keep me from really getting into a groove. I was so used to reading in a quite environment that consisted only of myself. I would get in trouble for not being able to focus on my book and I blamed it on the books. I didn’t think it was my fault or anyone else’s fault; I thought it was the books fault. I wasn’t allowed to read The Lord of the Rings because my teachers knew that I had already read the books and for some reason that was a problem. Griffin reading was supposed to be a period when the student explored the literature world on his own and not with the direction of teachers, but I still could not read the books I wanted too. It was a good thing that they forced me to read other books because it broadened my horizons, but the books I chose to read were nothing compared to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. They were juvenile. They were the types of books that got the reader nowhere.
Poetry has played a big role in my life for the past two years. When my girlfriend moved away to Illinois for half a year, I was devastated and severely depressed. For a month or so I was miserable when alone and uncomfortable when around other people. I started to write poems about my feelings and I grew to love the poems as much as I had loved this girl. It was a daily routine to write a poem. Sometimes the poems had nothing to do with my girlfriend but at the start, most of the emotion that was in the poems came from the pain that I was feeling from my loss. My audience was my girlfriend. I sent all the poems to her by mail and she loved every one of them.
Sometimes when I write the poems it is strictly for my own enjoyment. It’s not all enjoyment actually. Most of the time it is quite the struggle because the poem has to be perfect. It has to be perfect for me! Why should it be perfect for me? It doesn’t have to be because nobody else is reading it but sometimes I actually feel that I could share some of the poems that I write. They could really help people understand who I am and where I have come from. Most of my friends have no idea who Charlie Glowacki really is because I have so many walls surrounding me at all times. When I write the poems, the walls come down and all the emotions that I hide from the world spill out onto the page. It is almost like a type of therapy for me. When I go into those rooms and sit in front of a therapist who I just met, there is no chance in hell that I could ever truly open up. I can’t trust random people like I can trust a blank sheet of paper. The blank sheet of paper will always be the greatest therapy for me because it helps me identify things in my life that I really struggle with.
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.
