Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Jason Fry has a great essay on the Wall Street Journal website entitled “Mightier Than the Pen,” where he asks the question, “Will children still write in an era ruled by computers and PDAs?” He places this in context by talking about his son, Joshua, reflecting upon the fact that even though the author “grew up in a pen-and-paper world,” his son is “growing up with computers and PDAs.” This is of course happening all over the world as a generation gap turns into future shock, millions of digitally-challenged parents having a hard time communicating with their Digital Native children. But Fry’s more lamenting about the lost art (and lost hours) of childhood activities such as printing and drawing. But he finally concludes that, as wonderful as print is, along with hand-written words on physical paper, “writing words by hand isn’t what makes us human. And in worrying too much about form, we risk forgetting how adaptable the heart is at investing our communications with feeling.” In looked at in terms of the “print is dead” debate, the same thing could be said (and should be said more often) about books and the debate over the worthiness of digital reading versus physical books; it’s not the format that’s at issue, but instead it’s about the connection between the human and the material. And just because there’s a computer between the two, it doesn’t make the experience any less real or profound. And in terms of the upcoming generations of Digital Natives — like Fry’s son, Joshua — they will already be so used to communicating with their laptops and portable devices that what seems alien to us will feel to them like home.

WSJ: Mightier Than the Pen