Why we shouldn’t worry about leaving print behind
nautil.us
nautil.us
I'm 28 years old, and I buy all my books in print form. There is something about learning from a physical object (with volume, texture, scent) that makes things "click" better. I remember "where", within some textbook I read half a decade ago, some topic is explained. A literal, physical "where": a page, somewhere in the middle of a physical stack of bound paper, which I can touch and feel; I might event remember where I was when I studied the subject; maybe I jotted some note on the margin, maybe I spilled tea on the pages before, giving that "where" its own unique texture and colour, all of which my brain will forever associate with that information. Digital can't do any of that.
There is nothing left to improve about the physical book.
Of course, if my physical book confuses me, because perhaps it was written by a certain man named Spivak, who does not like to explain what happens in between those little "=" symbols, I can't press on anything and expect it to expand magically and reveal more detail. It's at this point that I will turn to my laptop, and search for more information, maybe even ask a stranger half a world away, or watch an interactive video. My copy of "Calculus on Manifolds" can't do any of that.
I also still find that the best way to solve a problem (even a programming problem), is on pen and paper. Physically jotting down an idea beats pressing buttons while staring at an obnoxious, headache-inducing glowing screen any time (which I try to avoid as much as possible, even as a software developer). To me flipping still beats searching and clicking, and pen and paper still beat Google calendar, or whatever todo-app-of-the-week.
The best technology is invisible and gets out of the way. We are physical animals, and technology is best when it assists and enhances our physical world, not when it tries to be a shoddy substitute for it.
Of course, they are also given books in print and interact with them as well, but I feel that the verdict is still out there about how that generation will feel about print when they are our age.
That's a long-winded way of saying that neither of us is young anymore, and we _might_ be on our way to be less indicative of the future and more reminiscent of the past (Just _maybe_).
Immersive tech is cool, but invisible tech is even cooler. Wouldn't it be cool if you could manage your AWS instances from a beautiful garden out in the country, using nothing but your voice and some gestures and without having to look at a clunky old laptop (maybe a small notebook-like pad of e-ink, or perhaps an image projected from your watch).
Or when James Joyce uses a big word on your physical copy, you can just point at it and hear the definition. Or when writing down notes on your notebook, with pen and paper, your Google watch can instantly recognize an event and set an alarm.
That's the future I want to live in. In some ways, that's the world the first technologists envisioned: one in which technology does the dreadful for us, not a world in which we're glued onto a screen consuming ads and producing clickbait 24/7.
I saved some papers from 9/11 in a shoebox in a closet, and when I opened it 10 years later, some of the papers crumbled in my hands. Paper of any kind is fragile and easily damaged by humidity, weather, and fire. We give books and newspaper special treatment every day they're kept safe in our climate-controlled houses. If civilization came crashing down, these archives would be lost very quickly.
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=qhYDD8joCbQC&lpg=PT574&o...
Newspapers just decades old are all but dust now. There's no lasting power in paper. Stone and clay tablets is where its at. From a more realistic perspective, we live in an age where every tinpot dictator can get nuclear weapons and every powerful nation has enough to end the world, so past ideas of human survival let alone knowledge survival may be a bit naive. There's probably nothing that will survive WWIII and there's no reason to think WWIII isn't going to happen eventually.
Same for digital.
> With digital, you can easily just have thousands of copies spread around various data centers and never have to worry about that.
Same with print. Just replace "data centers" with "libraries".
> The low cost to copy and the ease of transfer are pretty big advantages here.
It's only low cost and easy if you assume the whole computing infrastructure is already available: electrical and networking grid(s), working equipment, compatible software, trained operators, etc. All of that is expensive and, for archival purposes, fragile.
> And you get things like easy searching, perfect copies, etc as well.
No arguments there, but these advantages have little to do with long-term preservation.
The best archival strategy is going to involve multiple types of media. Keep things available on the network for ease of access. Put important things on paper/parchment just in case. Mix in tape/film and other media as needed.
You originally said "you don't even need to destroy them to render them useless. Just turn off the power!" I guess turning the lights off makes a book "useless".
I love that I can carry a library of books in my bag with a fraction of the weight. I can also quickly sample and potentially purchase a book on a whim without having to leave my home or wait for a delivery. I can switch between books or magazines in a cinch. I don't need to recycle old magazines and instead just rely on the next issue of the New Yorker magically showing up on my device. And most importantly, the space saved in my physical home is invaluable.