Tyler on the Move: Paper and the Future
Tyler on the Move: Paper and the Future
Tyler on the Move
Volume 5
Issue 7
05/13/2008
I like dog-eared pages, the feel of paper, and old notes falling out of book covers when I open them. I like seeing colorful spines of books along my walls, each rectangle housing its own complete world that I’ve entered at one time or another. I like flipping through books in search of a favorite passage, knowing exactly where to find it because I can literally see the page in my mind and where the words are located.
Now I’m not promising that some day you won’t look into my purse and see a wireless reading device. What I am saying is that I’m not a present convert. I still want paper books, books that I can toss onto the hammock, give to friends to read, or write in the margins of with pen instead of a keyboard.
I simply don’t mind being old-fashioned, but after being told multiple times that electronic books are the way of the future I decided to ask them – the future that is. Because I visit a lot of school campuses I set out to ask students half my age what they thought of paper versus electronic books. My focus was various classes of high-school freshman and many of the conversations turned out to be more interesting than I thought.
While many students expressed an interest in electronic books, after they had finished shouting “Save the trees!” they admitted they don’t even read outside of school. More often than not, the fourteen and fifteen-year-olds I talked with who read at home preferred paper books. They want to keep those distinct worlds on their shelves as well, not store their stories in an electronic box where they couldn’t see them. They like sharing their books with friends and receiving books as gifts.
One fifteen-year-old student at Vintage High School in Napa, California explained to me that his generation would prefer electronic books exclusively because they were raised in technology and know nothing else. I asked if he would buy something just because it was more “technologically advanced” without even stopping to consider its merit. He said yes. Still, other students were adamantly opposed to something being considered the way of the future just because it was electronic.
One student argued that with the constant changes in technology it was wasteful to download books to a device that would be obsolete within a few years’ time. Other students told me that printed books were already complete in themselves, not needing to be changed or manipulated; the print would last their lifetimes and beyond. Another student was concerned about the carbon footprint she would leave by buying an electronic device that would need to be replaced.
To be fair I am ready to admit that devices like the Amazon Kindle e-book reader have great features that paper books do not, but like those students half my age I do have another very important question. What happens when you drop it in the bathtub? Paper is still my future.
http://www.writersnewsweekly.com/
Tyler on the Move
Volume 5
Issue 7
05/13/2008
I like dog-eared pages, the feel of paper, and old notes falling out of book covers when I open them. I like seeing colorful spines of books along my walls, each rectangle housing its own complete world that I’ve entered at one time or another. I like flipping through books in search of a favorite passage, knowing exactly where to find it because I can literally see the page in my mind and where the words are located.
Now I’m not promising that some day you won’t look into my purse and see a wireless reading device. What I am saying is that I’m not a present convert. I still want paper books, books that I can toss onto the hammock, give to friends to read, or write in the margins of with pen instead of a keyboard.
I simply don’t mind being old-fashioned, but after being told multiple times that electronic books are the way of the future I decided to ask them – the future that is. Because I visit a lot of school campuses I set out to ask students half my age what they thought of paper versus electronic books. My focus was various classes of high-school freshman and many of the conversations turned out to be more interesting than I thought.
While many students expressed an interest in electronic books, after they had finished shouting “Save the trees!” they admitted they don’t even read outside of school. More often than not, the fourteen and fifteen-year-olds I talked with who read at home preferred paper books. They want to keep those distinct worlds on their shelves as well, not store their stories in an electronic box where they couldn’t see them. They like sharing their books with friends and receiving books as gifts.
One fifteen-year-old student at Vintage High School in Napa, California explained to me that his generation would prefer electronic books exclusively because they were raised in technology and know nothing else. I asked if he would buy something just because it was more “technologically advanced” without even stopping to consider its merit. He said yes. Still, other students were adamantly opposed to something being considered the way of the future just because it was electronic.
One student argued that with the constant changes in technology it was wasteful to download books to a device that would be obsolete within a few years’ time. Other students told me that printed books were already complete in themselves, not needing to be changed or manipulated; the print would last their lifetimes and beyond. Another student was concerned about the carbon footprint she would leave by buying an electronic device that would need to be replaced.
To be fair I am ready to admit that devices like the Amazon Kindle e-book reader have great features that paper books do not, but like those students half my age I do have another very important question. What happens when you drop it in the bathtub? Paper is still my future.
http://www.writersnewsweekly.com/
posted by Tyler Oaks at
4:15 PM
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