There is no great loss without some gain, and no great gain without some loss. So which is it? Many of us recoil at the thought of losing good old-fashioned "paper and glue" books and cringe at the thought that penmanship will soon be a completely lost art. Others embrace the possibility of a paper-free world and have already largely given up our pens and pencils. What will you miss most in a digital world? What will be the biggest advantages? Is it a net gain, or a net loss for humanity and art?
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Pros and Cons
There is no great loss without some gain, and no great gain without some loss. So which is it? Many of us recoil at the thought of losing good old-fashioned "paper and glue" books and cringe at the thought that penmanship will soon be a completely lost art. Others embrace the possibility of a paper-free world and have already largely given up our pens and pencils. What will you miss most in a digital world? What will be the biggest advantages? Is it a net gain, or a net loss for humanity and art?
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I love how easy it is to draft and revise your writing on a computer. I do not like how hard it can be to see the evolution of your writing, like with paper and pencil. (Microsoft Tracker gets distracting, especially how I correct as I draft!)
ReplyDeleteWe absolutely cannot lose our creativity and humanity. We also need to be able to use computers. What we need is balance - simple.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is a net gain. I think that there are some things that we have lost, and will lose even more as we increasingly shift into the new virtual world but overall technology is going to benefit art, writing, and democracy.
ReplyDeleteI want it to be a net gain, but I wonder about how how brains will develop as we start to multi-task at younger and younger ages. The biggest advantage is our connectivity and ability to problem-solve together. Never say never, right? I haven't made the move to a digital book yet, but you never know. I LOVE underlining and annotating.
ReplyDeleteWriting in books, engaging with the text on an intamite level. When I read online I still don't find that gratificaiton that I get when reading an old, loved book. But looking at technology as a process in the artistic expression puts my mind at ease, create the art then share the art in the digital world.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't we have both? I am a book person. I own way more than I've read and I love the feel and smell of actual books, journals and notebooks. I think it is important to embrace change (its the only constant) and not get stuck with the Flat-Earthers because we bury our heads in the sand. At the same time, we need to continue to embrace the past and appreciate the richness of the written word, the actual written word.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in juxtaposition. I like collage and bringing loose threads together. Technology enables me to take the principles and the materials of the past and combine them in new and exciting digital ways. So I think less about loss and more about about deconstructing what has been and reconstructing using new tools.
ReplyDeleteI feel that multi-tasking with technology at a young age will develop some areas of our brains, but what about the rest of the brain? Our brains are like the rest of the body, it needs its daily workouts too. A lot of kids I work with today cannot do math in their heads! What happens when the power goes out?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it needs to be either/or. Just because we learn how to fly doesn't mean we stop walking. Writing paper and pencil style is purely human (OK, maybe chimps too). I think that kind of basic activity has value and informs us just as much as sliding your finger across a screen. Just different modalities.
ReplyDeleteI have seen negative effects already. I have seen more and more kids having tracking problems (can't visually follow the words while reading) in many more students in the last 5 years. Are our eye changing because we are asking them to use them differently? Can they use their fine motor skills to write neatly/draw/color? Will they need these skills in the future? (kind of like teaching something obsolete like cursive.. they don't really need it!) On the positive side, there is always hope for the future, you never will know its potential until you embrace it.
ReplyDeleteScout, underlining and annotating... yes! Somehow the tools on computers are not nearly as satisfying. The smell of paper, the scratch of a pen... People need contact with a variety of objects and people, and I feel like techonology is taking that away.
ReplyDeleteYes Jo-Jo. I agree
ReplyDeleteThe Pros-and-Cons argument is very contextual. In terms of writing, I will say that I am intimidated by my own terrible handwriting; that intimidation factor shows in whatever I handwrite because I feel it's not well crafted. When I type, it looks more professional, clean, not full of scratch-outs, and eraser marks. In all, word processing gives more confidence to those who have terrible handwriting, but it also detracts from those people who need to raise the quality of their handwriting.
ReplyDeleteI will miss the abundance and natural ways of face-to-face communication. I already do. There are a lot of times when it is really important to just put down the technology--stop texting, stop emailing, even stop phoning--and go sit down with another human being at the coffee shop. Cell phones and laptops OFF.
ReplyDeleteMissMichigan, I agree with you about Microsoft Tracker. Have you tried Google Docs? I'm trying to figure out if that works out a little better for me.
ReplyDeleteMariposa... good point.
ReplyDelete