What is the relationship between print and digital media? Will one medium replace the other medium? And what does this mean for everyday writing?
Both print and digital media play a significant role in our daily lives. We rely on certain information to come from a print text and other information to come from our Facebook feeds. In recent times, there has been a drastic urge to reduce the amount of paper we use because "paper kills trees" and dead trees kill us and a whole bunch of other environmental B.S.. Though this may be true, many people don't realize that without paper many of our daily functions would cease to exist and that would drastically affect how our world operates as a whole.
When computer technology started, as Gladwell stated, it was not supposed to replace paper. In many ways in modern society with the Go Green campaigns, populations around the world have begun to reduce the amount of paper they use and start going paperless, using computers to file and store many of those documents. Inventors have created devices to easily allow the transfer of files from paper to digital. But Gladwell states, "Everything we know about the workplace suggests that few if any knowledge workers ever refer to documents again once they have filed them away . . ." This can be seen with Dewey's invention of the filing cabinet. Once papers had been taken off the desk, out of their piles that produced active and ongoing thinking, things became less of a priority and eventually not referred to. The same can be assumed for computers, as their original function was to organize files and essentially "store" paper instead of having and excess and unnecessary amount of paper lying around office spaces.
Digital media will not, in my opinion, replace print media, at least not in this generation. I wholeheartedly believe this because paper and thus print media play active roles in our lives. If I write a to-do list for myself it stays in my mind because I'm actively thinking about the things that I need to complete to make that list shrink. But yet if I were to do the same on my iPhone, that list would get thrown to the back of my priorities because of other easily accessible functions my phone has. There have been countless times where I've gone onto my phone to set an alarm or check my email and twenty minutes later I'm scrolling Pinterest wondering what exactly I was supposed to be doing. Print media enables thinking as Gladwell says. Our piles on our desks, to-do lists in our notebooks, random notes we've left for ourselves all activate our minds into the here and now, but digital media cannot do that. Digital media stores our files for another day and sends us into a lull.
Print and digital media work together to make our task of writing easier to manage. According to Harper and Seller “paper has a unique set that make writing affordances.” From personal experiences I would say that is true. When I write things down on paper they become clear and more understandable. I feel like the physical aspect of the paper helps one arrange things in manner they can understand, a quality which digital do not have. Even though digital text can be seen on a computer screen it is not really touchable. Therefore, even when edit a paper many individuals prefer print text. In the work place and the world in general the idea of going green have been mentioned for years. However, that goal have been hard to accomplish. Paige mention that technology will not replace paper in this generation, but might in the near future. I believe differently, I feel that paper are just as important as any form of technology we have and that might to be created in the future. Therefore neither will ever replace each other. Also this read shows how everyday text can be seen differently because of the material on which it is place.
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