*Serdar
Some truth there, but I find audiobooks insufferable – you can’t “read” them at your own pace, or skim them by glancing as you flip. Audio complements text without replacing it.
January 22 at 2:00pm

*Jim
Good post, but I don’t think it’s that either/or. For example, individuals’ learning styles differ, and different media will be more or less beneficial for different people. I have no doubt at all that I learn some things better from print than I do from video and especially audio, though I’m very happy for my print to be in electronic rather than … See Morehard format. There are probably data about the effectiveness of different media for different tasks and different learning styles but it would take a while for me to find it. The issue of democratisation of the media is a different matter, and we’ve had a conversation about this and probably won’t convince each other. A final point – the Luddites might have been many things, but elitist was not one of them, unless you twist the word really hard.
January 22 at 7:05pm

*Richard
I did not mean to imply that the Luddites were elitist. I meant that the attitude of those who bemoan the change is BOTH elitist, i.e., print is better than other forms of communication, AND reminiscent of the Luddites, “who protested… against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and … changing their entire way of life.”

At its heart my essay’s most basic point is that technology and civilization march on (maybe forward, perhaps not) and it is better to adapt, as I think the librarian community is doing, at least in Southwestern Connecticut, USA than to to cling to the old ways because they are more familiar and comfortable.
January 23 at 7:57am ·

*Jim
Depends what you mean. My view is that technology is, and should be, contestable. Reading your posts and blogs, you do this all the time yourself! Let me cut & paste some paragraphs from my lecture on technological change in my Sociology of Work course, let me know what you think -

An important issue that we need to consider is whether technology can act as an independent source of change. This involves a debate over what is called “technological determinism”.

Technological determinism means that technology has inescapable consequences – that is, technology leaves us with little choice about how we do things. In fact, many accounts of technological change appear to give technology causal power. For example, we often hear things like “the automobile created suburbia” or “computers have changed the way we work”…. See More

Examples like these are called reification. This term has various meanings. For example, it can mean that relations between people are treated as if they were relations between things over which people have no control. Thus “the computer has changed the way we work” is a reification, because it sounds as if it was computers that did something, rather than humans introducing computers in order to do something. There is a very significant difference.

An alternative view of technology tells us that the history of technology is a history of human actions. Thus we want to know, who developed the technology and in what circumstances? Why was the innovation first adopted in one place rather than another? Most importantly from the sociologist’s viewpoint, who benefited from the innovation and who lost out? Technological change occurs in a social, economic, political and cultural context in which there are competing interests. There are many examples of technology being “shaped” by choices made in the interest of one group or another. That is, technology does not develop autonomously or in a socially neutral way.

*Serdar
@Jim: This is the exact problem I have with the concept of “information wants to be free” (a logical fallacy on the face of it, since information doesn’t “want” anything). It would be better to say that people want free access to certain kinds of crucial information, but saying that leaves you with a judicious and temperate assessment instead of an… See More instant slogan. Guess which one wins.

I forget who said it now, but there’s another slogan that goes: “Technology is neither good nor evil, but neither is it neutral.” It assumes the shape of the social and economic vessels it is poured into, and every time we think of it as being a force “coming in from the outside”, we miss the point.
Sun at 5:29pm ·

*Richard
Jim:
Your points are well made.

You wrote, “…who benefited from the innovation and who lost out?” With the shift away from the printed word the beneficiaries are most people who have access to computer-based terminals. This includes smartphones, which are small computers. Communication via audio or video+audio file is easier for many, if not most people. People without access to computers and the visually and auditory handicapped are net losers. Although there are accessibility applications most audio and video doesn’t play nice with them.

You also wrote, “There are many examples of technology being “shaped” by choices made in the interest of one group or another. That is, technology does not develop autonomously or in a socially neutral way.”

The business adage version of this is, “Just because you build a better mouse trap doesn’t mean the world will beat a path to your door.” Marketing, sales and PR efforts are necessary too.

Serdar:
I agree with your point about people being the force behind technological adoption.

Sound bites usually trump more precise statements. Human beings are rarely rigorous in their assessment of what they see, hear or read. We just want to be entertained. Dostoevsky made a related point in the “The Grand Inquisitor” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor. Shorthand version, “People prefer food over religion or freedom.”

Frisch’s third law is “Technology changes, always.” Corollary “The rate of technological change increases with time.”

*Binnie

Richard:
I cannot buy into your premise of the death of the printed word…..comparing the written word to oil painting. I for one do NOT enjoy listening to a book. Perhaps this speaks to our different ways of learning….you may be an auditory learner, I am not…I am experiential. Nothing will ever replace the smell and feel of a good, treasured book. No, I do not want to carry around a kindle or other contraption, I wan to turn real pages…maybe even make notations in the margins.

I do believe, perhaps along with you and many others, that the way we communicate…and read…is changing, evolving.
But please Richard, do not kill books and slaughter our society. The western world is crumbling fast enough.

*Sam
It might take more skill to create a movie than to write the script, but it takes more skill to read a book than to watch a movie.