Journal #7

Print and digital media are both essential in society today. They both serve the same function, which is to communicate information to others. Print texts can be altered in the real world, but can not be shared with as large a group as a digital text. In "The Social Life of Paper", Gladwell talks about a chocolate manufacturer and how the buyers had folders of papers organized in such a way that it had to be explained by the individual. He says that "the much advertised advantage of digitizing documents- that they could be made available to anyone at any time- was illusory: documents can not speak for themselves." I think that there is something about a tangible text in front of you that makes it more accessible because it is in your hand and parts of it can be pointed at and explained by a person in front of you. That can't be done by simply giving someone a pdf of the papers and leaving them to navigate through it. I do not think one medium will completely take over the other, because there will always be a need for the tangible and a desire for the digital. Print text can be annotated and moved, unlike digital text, which is more useful in sharing with larger groups and opens up the opportunity to communicate and collaborate over distance. 

I disagree with Andrew's opinion that print texts will be eradicated, mostly because even though there will inevitably be advancements in technology, there will still be a want, if not a need, for paper. There is something sentimental about print text that cannot be found in a digital medium. I'm not saying there will be a need for the print text, but there will be some people who decide to keep old copies of books or letters from their great grandparents or something. I think that in the future paper will be preserved and given some historical value, if nothing else.