It is an extremely common fact that our world is getting more and more digitalized. The amount of things being done on computers is growing exponentially. I promise to those reading that this isn't going to be an anti-technology post, but instead a discussion on how virtual will our reality become. I am not saying that in a way to symbolically communicate that we are advancing too fast or that technology needs to stop growing, but instead just a simple question as a result of curiosity. I know that many will immediately want to say that eventually everything that can possibly be electronic will be, but I am not so sure if I completely agree. I say that because we have already may some large steps towards a virtual society when we began the widespread use of e-readers and having paperless classrooms, but is this really catching on? Many schools are getting things like laptops and tablets to do work on, and even when I was in high school we had recently gotten the addition of Smart Boards to our classrooms. Even with theses advancements I still see plenty, if not the vast majority, of students still carrying around a backpack full of textbooks and taking notes with pen and paper. I do have to admit to seeing more and more students using laptops in college classes for note taking, but there is still a large majority who strongly dislike typing out their notes. For me it depended heavily on the type of class. Some classes were great for just plugging away on a keyboard for notes, like history classes, but others, such as math and science, were almost impossible to type out notes for. This was mostly due to the addition of diagrams and pictures within my notes that a computer could not easily or quickly produce. Then we move onto e-readers such as the Kindle, IPad, and pretty much every other tablet and smart phone on the market. These have become incredibly popular, but by what I have noticed they are largely used for productivity and gaming. Most people that I meet still prefer to read a paper book or have a physical textbook. I personally would take a hard cover book over a kindle book any day. The reason behind this is mostly unclear to me and I just seem to prefer to hold the physical copy of the text in my hands. I know that there are many out there who love reading digital books, and there are a great many pros to e-readers. The usefulness of technology is not at question here because I know that technology advancement has many pros. What I am wondering is how likely it is that we will move to a completely digital era where libraries no longer exist (at least physical ones do not), writing by hand is a lost art, paper is the equivalent of stone tablets, human cashiers are no longer needed, and anything else that people can make digital. This seems like the future we are heading towards, yet people seem to still be holding on to things like books and records. Talking about records, the music industry is seeing a large comeback in vinyl. In a time that we thought everything was becoming an mp3 we are having a massive popularity in bringing back vinyl. Even modern bands are releasing albums in vinyl. I can personally say that I have a record player in my room with a decent collection of albums, but I also have a type writer and an 8mm projector so I am not sure if that helps reflect society at all. A lot of people will blame to being part of the "hipster" movement that is going through the college generation right now, but are college students not the future working class? If this is getting more and more popular than maybe once the college generation right now gets older we will see a slight decrease in the movement towards an electronic future. Maybe a completely digital society is like an asymptote on our graph of life where it is an area that exists but we will never reach it due to our unwillingness to complete let go of items such as books, vinyl, pen and paper, and many other things. We will forever get closer and closer to it, but never completely make the transition.
Sincerely - CO
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