Eulogy for Books and Videos
It is so sad what is happening to the world. Technology is making life a colder, less tactile, experience. The days of browsing through shelves and connecting face to face with a stranger in the book or video store when they notice you looking at a book or video cover, and they say that they read that book, or saw that video, and how much they enjoyed it. Perhaps they also tell you specifically what they liked about it, starting a real conversation, and possibly a real friendship.
Gone will be the days when you like a book so much you lend it to your friend, and that well loved book will become well worn as a badge of it’s adoration. Lending beloved stories to a friend will be less likely as you won’t be lending a kindle to a friend.
Gone will be the days of sitting in a cafe reading a book–the smell of it’s pages mingling with the aroma of the coffee. And if you spill some of your coffee on those pages of your book, that mark left by the coffee will transport you back to that moment in that cafe years later when you reread that favorite book.
The word gains much from technology. But it loses a great deal, as well.