I just realized something from Saturday.
I keep dating myself; even in class – and I’m only 3 to 4 years older than my students but I am masterful at getting this glazed look for something that I am referencing.
After being asked if I had been to India and replying not yet, I asked the girls I tutor if they had seen “The Secret Garden.” (I realized that night I was actually thinking of “A Little Princess” – similar looking main characters.) My next thought was I don’t have it to lend them, my mom has all the video cassettes. Tapes? Their question: oh! You mean like the disk CD? My reply: no…. a rectangular tape? a VHS? Goes in a VCR?
Clueless.
Supposedly they figured out what I ment. But I don’t even know if VHSes are sold anymore….will have to check. But thinking of how music CDs replaced cassettes and mp3s will replace those, and DVDs taking over the VHS world – does that mean eReaders will one day be all that there is? On one hand, this could make censoring countries hve a bit more difficult time unless they were able to block all eBook sites ever. But on the other hand, what would this do to the knowledge balance already tipped in favor of the wealthy in society? Will libraries become online to facilitate renting eBooks? Would certainly save on overhead…
But, how sad 😦 a world with out books? There’s too much comfort in being around them 😦 what will future generations turn to when only holding a book by an author who has written something so profound it explains everything you couldn’t put into words – where will they seek comfort?