Progress as Betrayal: New Media vs. Nostalgia
Sliding into my airline seat, I notice that all three people across the aisle have some kind of e-reader open on their lap: two Kindles (I think) and a Nook. I look up a row, and see another screen glowing in someone’s hands. What I don’t see is a regular old paperback or hardcover.
I remember thinking it would be sad when eBooks took over the world. My house is bursting with bookcases. Dozens of novels tumble off the nightstands, pile up under the coffee table, and become small towers in the corners of rooms. Both my husband and I still have books we read when we were kids: Flight to the Mushroom Planet, The Secret Garden, The Borrowers. We’ve also saved the books we read to our own children, and hundreds of other favorites.
It’s not that we read many of them again, although many have gotten pulled off the shelves and handed to our sons. (“You’ve never read The Godfather? You gotta read The Godfather!”) But they remain visible, tangible memories of things we loved. They remind us of different times of our lives: the new parent time, the gnomes and dragons phase, the vampire years, and our Bourne identities. If these had been eBooks, they would have disappeared years ago, just like all those digital photographs we take, post, and forget about.
But here’s the thing. As I settle into seat 9B, I pull out my iPad and open to page 678 of my four-book bundle of Game of Thrones. Because it’s easier to bring an iPad on a plane than it is to bring a thousand-page book.
And there are the little things. I love that I can touch gorget on my iPad screen and find out that it’s a piece of armor used to protect the neck. If I forget who Ser Raynald is (seriously, I think there are a thousand characters in this series), I can do a quick search and find out.
I can make notes for book club, highlight a great phrase, or create a bookmark by just touching a corner. Most importantly, I can make the type as large as I want, which is very important these days.
So I sink back in my own seat and think, I guess even I’m a convert. I feel really guilty about that. But I suppose people felt guilty about their horses when cars took over the roads.
Bonnie Dobkin helps conceptualize print and digital programs across the humanities. She is also a well-published author.
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