Technology has unquestionably changed the way in which people go about their daily lives. Long gone are the days of mailing out payments for monthly bills and keeping track of documents in filing cabinets that stretch the length of entire office walls. With a few clicks of a mouse or taps on a touchscreen, virtually everything that needs to be done can be taken care of without much hassle or time consumption.
While the convenience factor of this technology cannot be ignored, there are some serious drawbacks that unfortunately seem inevitable. Future generations are going to miss out on social experiences that defined our culture for so long. Cellphones have taken the place of landlines and texting has taken the place of everyday conversation. Adolescents today will never know the horror of calling the home of their crush only to have their parent answer nor will they know the excitement of waiting for their Scholastic book orders to arrive in class.
With the recent announcement that Barnes & Noble will be closing a third of their stores across the country within the next 10 years, there is hardly a question about the fate of hard copy books in the future. Much like hand-written letters, books will become a rare entity. Not to say that the love of reading will be lost on future generations, but the way in which material is read will be drastically different.
Kindles and tablets are becoming a more common way for people to read. Magazines, news and novels can all be instantly purchased and downloaded onto a tablet and read on the spot. But with this increased accessibility, what will come of it?
Books seem to be headed down a slippery slope that parallels the music industry. When music began to be pirated on a widespread basis it became less profitable to the artist. As a result, the quality of mainstream music went downhill. It’s easy to ignore something as trivial as the quality of mainstream music, but what if the quality of writing follows a similar path?
Some would argue that this is already happening, but could it feasibly get worse?
It’s simple logic. If people share books the way they do music and movies, there will be fewer qualified authors that decide to become a writer due to the financial strain they could be under.
Additionally, books will eventually be seen as a poor person’s commodity. Kindles and tablets will become a mark of social status and will separate the students of more well-off families from those of families with a lower income. The financial responsibility of owning a tablet may begin to weigh on students more as classroom textbooks are offered at cheaper rates for students who own electronic reading devices. The incentive to buy these products will only continue to grow and the sale of paperbacks will increasingly diminish.
The closing of Barnes & Noble stores across the nation is just the beginning of a common trend that could end in widespread illiteracy.