My dad was shocked when I googled "2010 tax forms" and navigated to the IRS webpage. It was natural to me: Where to get tax forms? The internet, of course. So I asked him, "Well, where do you get them?" He said the library. The library? How would I have known that? His amusement continued as I downloaded the forms as PDFs and filled in the fields on my computer. "Don't you want to print the instruction guide?" he inquired. "Thanks, Dad," as I control-F-ed to find "dividends" in the instruction manual, "but that just seems like a waste of paper to me."
We're out of touch, literally. Technology provides us with everything we need in digital format, and the physical, hard copies are becoming obsolete. I predict land lines (though useful for safety) will be old news in a few years - who wants to deal with cables when they can connect by cell tower?
Newspapers are getting smaller and smaller because readership is down. Where's the first place I go to find news? Google, most likely. Or CNN.com. Now and again I'll read the newspaper when I eat breakfast, but only because my parents subscribe. Will I have my own subscription when I move out? There's a good chance I won't.
I purchased a course catalog when I started at UCLA so I could browse the pages. There's a digital PDF version online, and I bet they'll stop publication of the hard copy at some point in the future.
For a few hundred dollars you can buy a device that tries to digitally recreate the experience of reading a book. While a Kindle can conveniently load millions of pages into a compact, portable format, doesn't it still feel like a blaringly white computer screen with digital text?
To me, nothing can replace the physical experience of reading a book. Handling it, feeling the roughness of a bestselling, cheap paperback, the crisp and delicate onionskin of a Bible, or the heavyweight, smooth paper of a just-published hardback book. Hearing how these different papers sound when you flip through the book. Turning pages and simultaneously uncovering the plot. Carting it along to the beach, in the bath, on an airplane. Smelling the fresh ink of a new acquisition, or basking in the mustiness of an old favorite. I had an English professor say that reading is a very sensual experience - it's not just about the words on a page, but the feeling, the sounds, the smells. Heaven forbid books will ever disappear (and if they do, I'll be the one hoarding them all).
We're exchanging our sense of touch for convenience's sake. I think we're losing a lot of the integrity of the information when we only receive it in digital format.
So go read a book.
Will books disappear completely? Some appear to think so: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129251016
