The Next Generation
A few weeks ago, I had a chat with a young lady from Brazil about how technology will affect the behaviors of kids just being born now. She argued quite strongly that screens and digital content would almost completely supplant more traditional mediums.
I agree with her. I don't honestly think people will be purchasing DVDs in 20 year's time. I give the movie industry that much time to get it together on the digital front, and for the inertia of ingrained technologies to erode.
The one small point we differed on was books. Now, this girl was about 10 years younger than me, in her early twenties. She felt that a child of age 5 now would never feel inclined to buy a book once they became an adult, in favor of a computer or e-reader. I asked her if she was aware of the glacial pace at which new technologies proliferate into our public education system.
"How do you feel about physical, printed books?" I asked her.
"I love them," she said. "I must have books. But the children now, they won't have any books. It will change a lot."
What I had trouble explaining to her (I don't speak Portuguese) was that about 5 years ago, when she was still in high school, people my age were having conversations about how kids in high school don't read books anymore.
She's absolutely right that technology will change the future, but I'm not worried about the loss of physical books. The very reason I try to read books is to keep my mind agile. If, in the distant future, books have been completely outmoded, I hope to be too busy trying to learn something off of whatever replaced books to be moping around coffee shops complaining to the young people about the death of books.
In truth, I'm more concerned about social forces that might lead to the outlawing of books. There was a trove of information in Alexandria's library that was completed eradicated. The Mayans had several thousand books, and the Spanish priests did a pretty good job of destroying all but three of them. My hope is, books or not, that the body of knowledge we've amassed as a species over the past few hundred years is preserved.
I agree with her. I don't honestly think people will be purchasing DVDs in 20 year's time. I give the movie industry that much time to get it together on the digital front, and for the inertia of ingrained technologies to erode.
The one small point we differed on was books. Now, this girl was about 10 years younger than me, in her early twenties. She felt that a child of age 5 now would never feel inclined to buy a book once they became an adult, in favor of a computer or e-reader. I asked her if she was aware of the glacial pace at which new technologies proliferate into our public education system.
"How do you feel about physical, printed books?" I asked her.
"I love them," she said. "I must have books. But the children now, they won't have any books. It will change a lot."
What I had trouble explaining to her (I don't speak Portuguese) was that about 5 years ago, when she was still in high school, people my age were having conversations about how kids in high school don't read books anymore.
She's absolutely right that technology will change the future, but I'm not worried about the loss of physical books. The very reason I try to read books is to keep my mind agile. If, in the distant future, books have been completely outmoded, I hope to be too busy trying to learn something off of whatever replaced books to be moping around coffee shops complaining to the young people about the death of books.
In truth, I'm more concerned about social forces that might lead to the outlawing of books. There was a trove of information in Alexandria's library that was completed eradicated. The Mayans had several thousand books, and the Spanish priests did a pretty good job of destroying all but three of them. My hope is, books or not, that the body of knowledge we've amassed as a species over the past few hundred years is preserved.