People still read nowadays, but much less. One has to admit that with the life-changing invention of the internet and the birth of the digital age, reading a book may appear to some as a tedious task. In the age of globalisation where time and space is compressed with the advance of technology, the book no longer fits in. The book is time consuming, demands patience and linear thinking; it is harder.
The internet is ridiculously easy. When I was a child and I had to look up any subject, I had to sit, look at the table of contents/ index and even read background material to get a better idea of what i'm looking for. Today, within a couple of seconds you can find endless information, on anything and it can be isolated from its background. This is easy, saves time, and gives us the feeling that we control the information rather than vice versa (when we had to sit for hours to find that one evasive piece of information).
Today, we are masters of information rather than slaves of it; we sit effortlessly behind our keyboards and manipulate huge masses of information as we wish. Minimum time and minimum effort.
This is tempting to all; young and old, academic and non-academic, nobody can deny that- the facts speak for themsleves, the internet is present in practically any field of life.
However- all this comes at a price. Linear thinking, patience, deeper analytical thought and creativity of imagination are being traded off for time and immediate pleasure. The problem is- immediate pleasure is highly desired and time, highly useful.
So this is where we stand today, we have gained so much, developed so rapidly but at a price. The only question to answer now is- how high is that price? How much have we lost in this age of rapid development?
In my opinion, this price can only be judged in relative
terms to the pace the world is going at. That is, the qualities we have 'given up' or 'traded' are arguably useless today, and will probably be even more useless in the future. One who has linear thinking, patience and can read a book that could also function as a doorstop in the year two thousand and nine, is equivalent to a man with billions of dollars in cash... on a desert island
His dollars are nice, but useless
In conclusion, many in this day and age (including
myself) are sentimentally attached to books, and the thought of letting them go is downright frightening. However, at this pace, there really isn't any choice, it is inevitable.
Soon, it will be time to say "goodbye" to the book for good.
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