I know we've had at least a few discussions about the repercussions of the digital age. Personally, I believe there are a great deal of things that have arisen from the digital age that I love. The Internet allows me easy access to a great deal of information that I otherwise would not have the time or energy to research. Email and cell phones allow me to keep in touch with friends and family back home (Wisconsin) much easier than would otherwise be possible. Though admittedly, I am terrible at keeping in touch with people despite that, as I'm often reminded. One thing that really irks me about digital information, though, is this movement to replace books and magazines with 'e-materials.'
I hate e-books and e-zines, and the like, for a number of reasons, and particularly when I have to pay for them. I'm a Dungeons and Dragons fan, and have been since late elementary school. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'll explain as briefly as I can. You've heard of World of Warcraft or Everquest? Well, Dungeons and Dragons is the basis for those games. Instead of playing it on a computer, however, Dungeons and Dragons is played with pencil and paper and, most importantly, imagination, at a table with a group of your friends. Well, Dungeons and Dragons requires a good many books to play, instead of CDs with expansions for WOW or Everquest and the like. Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of D&D, used to publish a pair of magazines named, respectively, Dungeon and Dragon. Original, I know, but they were great publications! Dragon contained information to help the players create better characters. Dungeon detailed adventures for those players to participate in from start to finish. Well, recently, WotC decided to cancel the publication of these magazines and move them onto their website as ezines. I was a little miffed about this. I've been collecting these magazines nearly since I started playing the game. But I tried not to get too up in arms about it, because the information was being released for free from the website.
Well, today I logged on to look at the new articles published, and I found out that I now must pay $7 per issue of each magazine in order to view the content. For those too lazy to do the math, and I don't blame you, that's $168 for access to all 24 issues that will be published in the next year. $168 for something that I can't even take away from my computer!
Now, the costs aside, I hate this movement to digitize books and magazines for other reasons. I like to pick up and feel the books I'm reading. I like to fill my bookshelves with all the volumes I've collected. My wife and I have three bookshelves bursting with books, and most of those are double stacked because we don't have room for more shelves. I keep my Dragon and Dungeon magazines in protectors in binders, organized by date of publication. I like to write notes in the margins of my books and make marks when I find something interesting. I like the feel of the paper of old books, and I love the smell of old libraries. I used volunteer my time in an old elementary library, I loved organizing and categorizing the books (I liked reading children's stories to the classes that came in, but that's beside the point). I like carrying books in my backpack and being able to whip one out to read when I have nothing better to do. Perhaps that's a materialistic attachment but there's just something about holding a good book in your hands, rather than bringing up some ethereal file on your harddrive that could perish with a particularly nasty virus or power surge.
So I leave you with a quote from the character Rupert Giles, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I know I'm a geek, it goes without saying): "Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer... It has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, uh... smelly."
What do you think?
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4 comments:
Johny...Hate to break it to ya, but libraries with un-digitized literature still exist :) It's a true story. I understand where you're coming from though. The internet definitely lacks the thrill of opening up a book and is all too available. I remember doing research papers back in the day, having to cite my sources from only books... Now it's more common to cite mainly websites. I remember that Barnes and Noble used to be the place to go to study and hang out, now it's internet cafes.
If you're really interested in reading, there's a bookstore in downtown SLC called Sam Weller's, it has books that are over a century old, and new books too. It has the 'smell' of good books. The kind of smell you would get from an old college library from back east, if that makes sense. There's no greater feeling that getting an old, first edition book... I won't let the internet take that way from me.
I think you may miss the point of my post. I realize there are plenty of destinations for un-digitized literature still. Barnes and Noble and local libraries still tend to be frequent haunts for myself and my family. My point was that the internet HAS taken away from me a source of hard copy literature that I enjoyed. I didn't have a choice in the matter. It is no longer available in print and never will be again. If I wanted the newest publications in hard copy, I would have to print them myself, costing me more money for the ink and paper. Ink and paper that would likely not be near the quality I would have received in print.
I don't fear that all literature will go the way of the computer. Someone once said that all our shopping would take place online and that has yet to happen. I just feel that something once available in hard print is somewhat diminished when it becomes a purely digital offering.
Thanks for the heads up on Sam Weller's, though. I hadn't heard of it and it sounds like a place I had back home in Wisconsin. A tall narrow store with tons of old books and one of those great rolling ladders to get to the volumes on high shelves. Definitely have to check it out! ^_^
Yea for Buffy!!
I totally know how you feel about the new digital age. I was one of the kids in school who never had a cell phone, iPod, or any of the latest high tech gear. Now that I'm in college, all this tech has shoved its way into my life; I hate carrying around a cell phone. It is this unsightly bulge that sticks out of my pocket. Additionally, every now and then I get a "ghost" ring; I end up checking my phone and nothing is there.
In my math class all my homework is on the internet which makes it difficult to do because I don't always have access to the internet. I miss being able to do homework with pen and paper, but at the same time it makes things more convenient because I can get the answers to questions immediately. I don't have to wait for the next class and humiliate my self for being the only one who had a question on the math.
I don't like the fact that everything is becoming digital, but at the same time it is inevitable that everything will.
~ukulele kid
Well my dear respected friend, I feel your pain. I love to read. I read fantasy novels, thrillers, self help books, holy writings and everything in between. I shudder at the thought of someone taking away books and replacing them with online editions. I would faint at the thought of no longer waiting for next months snowboarding magazine to show up in the mail and cracking open the pages to the smell of newly printed articles and full page photos of my favorite riders pulling tricks I can only dream about. And yet there is something about the convenience of technology that is so enticing. It is too convenient. When I returned from my two year sabbatical in argentina, my brother gave me an iPhone, the poster boy of modern technology and convenience. I have to admit, in the beginning I was indifferent. But as I've learned all the time saving features it has, I grow increasing more attached to it. So many things that I used to do manually are now obsolete. I don't know what I would do without it. I can write faster on the built in thumb keyboard than I can with a pen. So I even have opted at times to forgo paper and pencil and just take digital notes. I can then email them to myself and have them on file in my computer without ever touching pen or paper. So I see the benefit of digitizing our world. It really is a beautiful thing. Let us appreciate the wonders of modern technology and we will find new levels of comfort and convenience.
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