After these first two weeks of class, I have started to
re-evaluate my feelings towards the Internet and its rapid eclipse of
newspapers and other print media. Having written my Common App essay about my passionate
disdain for e-readers (which begs the question, “how did she get into college?”),
I came into this class with a lot of preconceived notions about the virtual
world. I thought that the Internet and all the information it provides were
making a direct attack on a medium that I had grown to love. It seemed to me
that most people in my age group would rather carry around a fashionable Kindle
in a leather pouch than a few books from the library, and that drove me crazy.
Yet as we
go through more of our assigned readings, I see that these two media can
coexist. It’s not as if one medium is trying to eliminate the other; both media
have their own pragmatic purposes in our fast-paced worlds. I think each
medium’s existence and influence depends on the humans who are making use of
them. Bolter propounds the same idea that “communities of readers help to
define the properties of the writing space by the demands they place on the
text and the technology.”
The traditionalist in me likes to
think that newspapers will survive my lifetime, but the pragmatist in me knows
that’s impossible. If I had been born a decade later I would be using e-readers
and virtual media for anything and everything because it’s so easy and
efficient. Obviously, I no longer harbor the animosity towards virtual media
that will forever stain every single one of my college applications. However, I
still prefer reading books and I’m not sure if that will ever change. Does it
have to?
I love that you wrote your college essay on your hatred of e-readers! My family is constantly forced to listen to me rant for hours about my disdain for e-readers, so i'm so glad that someone else my age feels that way! They totally take away from the reading experience, and when I see the commercials with parents reading bedtime stories to their children off e-readers or iPads, it makes me so angry because that is no way to teach a child how to read! I personally gained my love of reading from being read to as a child, so I think any parent who does that is drastically taking away that experience for a child! haha Sorry about that rant, it came naturally with the subject...
ReplyDeleteGreat point of view with your blog, maybe one day I too will learn to let go of my hatred towards virtual media and allow the two worlds to coexist equally!
I agree with both of you, and think that books will last for a long time because of people like us who prefer them over e-readers. Unfortunately, some things like newspapers will not. So, I must ask, when do you think books will dissapear, if at all?
DeleteTaylor, the rant was much appreciated! I actually mentioned bedtime stories in my college essay too. But how much can our nostalgia influence the rapid rise of e-readers and iPads? Kids that are born today won't have the same love of books instilled in them because they may not be as practical. Of course, if we have children, we'll be reading them Goodnight Moon out of a book, not on an iPad.
DeleteLisa, I think it will be at least a few decades before we start to phase out books entirely. I think it would be really interesting/scary to see what would to the books if we ever get to that point. Where would we put them? What would happen to libraries around the world? I feel like the replacement of books with iPads and computers will lead to this whole chain reaction of future students not having the skills that we were taught. Would people stop writing with pen and paper and start typing everything? The last time I handed in a hand-written paper was in the third grade. Anyways, I hope the book sticks around and that the coming generations won't take them for granted.