Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Edward Tenner has an interesting essay entitled “The Prestigious Inconvenience of Print,” which appeared in the March issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Tenner’s thesis is that even though digital media provides an interactive experience, and is (mostly) all-around more efficient, the physical medium of print still contains within it a “prestigious inconvenience” which people are willing to put up with. Tenner’s real point is basically the chant of the pigs at the end of Animal Farm, which I’d paraphrase as “Digital good, print better!” For instance, he mentions that while most businessmen send and receive voluminous amounts of e-mail, “their most important sentiments are likely to be expressed as handwritten notes — one of the reasons for the luxury fountain-pen industry’s niche in the digital age.” In this Tenner is completely correct, especially in his use of the word “niche.” Fountain pens are a rarity these days since they have been technologically replaced by the computer, Blackberry, and handheld devices with keyboards such as cellphones and UMPCs. In fact, that’s the exact argument of the “print is dead” debate; not that print will become extinct, but that it will instead become a niche product and interest.

Tenner even hovers around idea of print being dead, writing that, “just as luxury watches remain in demand while most people carry cellphones that give the time with virtually observatory-standard accuracy, the Web will never destroy older media because their technical difficulties and risks help create glamour and interest. At the same time, however, the Web does nibble at their base, creating new challenges for writers, musicians, and other members of the media.” First of all, I would say that, given the online world in which we now live, the Web is doing a lot more than just “nibbling” at older media. In fact, the thousands of people who have recently lost their jobs because they worked at magazines or newspapers that went out of business because of lack of interest and online competition would probably say they feel swallowed whole, and not just nibbled. And here Tenner makes a point he probably doesn’t want to make, pointing out that one day (perhaps soon) a printed book in a digital world will seem as quaint and as antiquated as a watch or a fountain pen feels today.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Prestigious Inconvenience of Print