Books Don't Need Batteries

Lately, I've been coming across articles - more articles than usual - about the inevitable death of print and how digital is superior in every way. Now, I'm doing an entire thesis on the superiority of digital media over print, so you'd think I would be on their side, but now that I've said that, you know I'm not.

Well, digital is superior to print for a number of reasons. They are all enumerated in my thesis and I will totes spruik it to you once it is a book, but I don't have the patience to go into them here, least of all when my claim is the opposite. I find two things objectively distasteful about this coverage of the death of print. The first is how it is announced with such GLEE. Most of these articles are positively rejoicing over the death of print journalism (they usually discuss journalism, not books, but both count) but I disagree with it all the same. Down with paper, up with screens! - they go. It's a new era! - they go. Well, the 'new' bit was well and truly over by the mid 1990s, so we can scrap that as an argument. As for the death of print... I could rehash the argument about how print has survived more advances in media than any other form of media and each technological change brought with it the same death cry, but there's no point repeating what's already been said.

Now I understand the internet is the first REAL threat because it's the first one to create a different medium by which text can be transmitted (and created, for that matter) and text was so far the source of all print's powers. And you know, MAYBE these articles are right and print doesn't survive this digital landscape, or whatever the new synonym is for CYBERSPACE!!! or THE NET!!!. I'm certainly not doing much to help it at the moment, am I?

But there's one little thing such pieces and the comments beneath them fail to mention. It's an omission that reveals the complacency of the developed world. It's the title of this post.

I didn't grow up in a place with a 24 hour power supply. I didn't grow up with computers, either. When we did get a PC in - I think it was 1996 - we watched out for flickering lightbulbs. Voltage fluctuations were a sign that the power was about to go out so we'd have to initiate shut down as fast as we possible could on Win95. To add insult to injury, the lights may only cut out for a few minutes but if the computer loses power, everything vanishes. Then came the UPS and instead of watching for flickering lightbulbs we'd watch the clock. The UPS would only provide enough power to last half an hour, so at the 15 minute mark, we save everything, and at 20 it's prepare for shut down, 25 it's YES to 'are you sure you want to turn off your computer?' and at 29 the lights are back.

Well, sure the situation's a lot better now, but by bringing up power cuts what I mean to draw attention to is the fact that every single form of media apart from print is dependent on electricity and electricity is dependent on non-renewable resources as are the gadgets that are meant to be responsible for killing print. Print is the only raw, renewable and 'real' medium of communication and a) it is expected to die, b) its death is a reason to celebrate?

How about a little more respect for the medium, a little more gratitude for your infinite power supply, and a little more thought for those places without?

At the moment I'm trying to read the PDF of a book. It is the most uncomfortable thing. What makes it so is not the harshness of words on a screen, or the absence of such romantic things like the sound of the crinkle of old books, and the smell of thumbprints, and the sight of pages the colour of loved yellow. It's the physical markers. I remember parts of a book based on the side of the page they were on, how close to the beginning that page is, whether it's at the top or the bottom and how the paragraphs were structured on that page. It's not photographic memory, it's just an unconscious mnemonic. Reading on a screen leaves me without those indicators of my position within a book. I lose my bearings, I get a bit lost. If I close the file I can't just flip it open to roughly where I was when I last left it and then flick back and forth till I find my spot. Very disorienting. I might be a fuddy-duddy but I can't imagine how I could enjoy a book I couldn't feel my way through.

I should just scrawl this on a flyer and stick it to lampposts around town.