The Modern Reader

I have been following the entire iPad brouhaha very closely, reading up on pre-launch reviews and now the first reviews that are rolling in from different quarters, curious and keen to see how and more precisely if this would change reading habits.

Looking back at the history of technology, every time a new technology was announced, people dismissed it saying nobody would ever use it. Take for instance, the reaction in the beginning of the 19th century of teachers vis-à-vis the introduction of paper in classrooms where slates were used previously.

Students today depend on paper too much. They don’t know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?

Or the way teachers reacted to the use of calculators for mathematics:

We can’t let them use calculators in middle school. If we do, they’ll forget how to do long division or how to multiply three digit numbers by three digit numbers. What will they do when they don’t have access to a calculator?

With every new technology, there was resistance and as time went by the “new” technology was no longer new or avant-garde. Instead it moved on to become common and before its detractors knew it, it was a necessity. It happened with paper, it happened with calculators, it happened with the PC, Internet, Cellphones…will it happen with e-reading devices?

Can e-reading devices, be it Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle or any other similar device that will be launched in the coming year replace traditional reading material? Will books be passé by 2020? I can see them replacing laptops, especially in American Universities and B-schools where students are already accustomed to using digitalised course material. But will they penetrate the larger market? Will the generation Y be going to be bed with a e-reading device on which the latest novels and reviews have been downloaded instead of a honest-to-goodness book or magazine?

I am not so sure…

PS Follow the argument here

PPS Check out this hilarious review by Stephen Colbert review by Stephen Colbert

Quelle horreur!

In a recent discussion with a friend, I sat rolling my eyes as he pontificated about how integral computers have become in our lives and how most homes in America have several desktops and/or laptops. Always willing to enter an argument on that front, I launched into a tirade against all that is capitalist and consumerist proclaiming that it is eating away our world and leaving us with waste that we do not know where and how to dispose. I was told, rather cockily, that I might as well get used to this evil world, of which I am very much a part because technology has pervaded our lives so much that we can no longer exist without it. I begged to differ, holding strong to my stance that we can always set limits on our dependence to technology and that we don’t really need more than one PC in a house.

A few days ago, I am appalled to admit I was forced to eat my words. My personal computer had been giving me a lot of trouble recently and in the last couple of weeks it was an ardous task getting it to function smoothly without hanging several times during an hour. I cleaned, cajoled, caressed but to no avail. I finally had to let go and deliver it in the hands of “higher more knowing authority” as it were, the end result being that I have not had my beloved lappy for the last few days. The weekend was easy but once the week started and I felt the assignment deadlines looming, saw the reminders for pending replies, got frantic about my lack of activity of the online forums of which I am a member – and I found myself desperately missing my computer, even though I could use my brother’s PC when I needed. Feeling caged and helpless without my own PC, I could sense my stress increase and I had to stamp down the urge to run out and purchase a new machine at 7 in the morning. Waiting for a slightly more decent hour, I frantically dialed my friend’s number, railing at him to fix my computer as soon as possible, crossing my fingers behind my back, that he wouldn’t remember my tall claims, just a week ago, of how I can exist without my own PC!

Quelle horreur! I can sense my worst nightmare coming true – I am becoming a product of this evil consumerist world that is making us depend increasingly on machines for the simplest of tasks!

PS I hope the said friend doesn’t read this post! Teehee!