Class, please take out your Nooks and swipe to page 45.

http://www.courant.com/business/technology/chi-barnes-noble-sees-fast-growth-with-nook-will-expand-to-9-new-countries-20121010,0,2997050.story

As this article states, “Barnes & Noble Inc. expects its digital Nook and college bookstore businesses to generate combined revenues of $3 billion this year, helped by strong e-books sales growth, and the bookseller said on Wednesday it plans to expand its digital bookstore into nine new international markets by June.”

While I hardly object to Barnes & Noble’s competitive position, I do fault the nation’s hearty approval of digital reading.  Here’s why:

First, consumers must understand that the trees we spare with the purchase of tablets and e-readers do not negate the other forms of waste associated with these devices.  We don’t have to plug paperbacks into outlets.  We power fewer machines when we produce a biography than when we assemble a Nook.  And let’s not forget that, recycling aside, a pamphlet or encyclopedia biodegrades swiftly and unremarkably while a plastic and metal tablet containing hazardous innards does not.

Second, e-books and e-textbooks cost as much as their paper counterparts.  When we purchase the digital versions, we encourage these contemptible pricing practices.

Third, a question:  Will it be okay with you if your eventual child grows up without ever opening, flicking through, cursing, highlighting, doggy-earring, starring, tucking notes into, stroking, and even sniffing a physical book?  At this thought, Faulkner would renounce us, Melville would sail away, and Shakespeare would pen another play simply to cast us as fools.

Somehow, this movement away from paper and toward digital mediums represents a grander disownment of history, of intense study, and of worthwhile knowledge.

We keep making things "easier."  Remind me...why do things need to be easier?

The Re-acknowledged Might of Paper and Pen

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/jobs/pen-and-paper-still-practical-in-the-office-workstation.html?ref=technology

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglewK6y8sWhlsUNB9rx6f7QyYiBPUlfU7QD6OHHSDS38ffqRqOyhUN7eHWMDZo1xjD6fRyKa1Iv4ewvkHc-JGe81iJEuQsYDbMmavoLqQajAkN6z85k2CR0jmygXvfIgN_6uaZNBuIROCk/s640/LittleGirlWritingAtDesk7260.jpg

I love the first three words of this essay:  “Paper still matters.”  Ahhhhh.  That was a serene exhalation, FYI.

Throughout this article, the author notes man’s return to such paper products as planners, notepads, and printed pages.  These modes of reading and writing more thoroughly engage individuals in their tasks and, in so doing, heighten productivity.

Indeed, off-screen reading permits workers to better understand the geography of a document and to reflect on the ideas presented.

I knew that the “aesthetic experience” of paper would one day return as a trendy throwback to sophisticated times.  I must note, however, that it took mankind a despicably long time to realize that we cannot achieve the pervasive urbanity and impact of Emerson and Shakespeare without ever touching pen to paper.

Another supremely worthwhile quotation reads, ‘Paper reminds us that “we’re physical beings despite having to contend with an increasingly virtual world...  It slows us down to think and to contemplate and to revise and recast.’”  I agree.

Though I am always pleased to defend such timeless tasks as writing and turning pages, I should admit that I could never have attained such undergraduate success without a computer.  I was an English major at Quinnipiac University and partially attribute my impressive essays to the perks of Microsoft Word.  The ease of deleting, rearranging, and locating appropriate synonyms helped me craft the most academically moving papers.  Though I would willingly recapture my softball days to pitch such horrible technologies as cell phones and internet routers into the willing gloves of my former teammates, I might not have excelled as a student without Microsoft Word.

I suppose, then, that I enthusiastically agree with this article’s assertions, though I would insist on retaining a one-function computer to compose all final drafts on the back-lit, faux-paper screen of Microsoft Word.