Aquariums, especially home owned, lead to habitat degradation and even species extinction. The ocean is a complex ecosystem that scientists have yet to come close to understanding. However, aquariums also promote interest and appreciation for such an ecosystem.
One of the downfalls of working at the Aquarium is that the animals you work closely with have a much shorter time span than you do. We recently lost a beautiful sandtiger shark named Zeus, and I found myself more emotionally distraught over the loss of a shark than I have been about many other personal issues that have arisen in the past year.
What does this have to do with "reading w/ the digital human", might you ask?
Well look at Dr. Schwartz addition of the electronic fish. I think they are quite cute, and I enjoy feeding them. However, I wonder if we overfed them or neglected to feed them if they would die. Kathryn Bell, a celebrity sci fi nerd, tells me she raised fish on a facebook application. These fish actually died and were shown floating upside down in a virtual fish bowl. What does it mean that we're even virtualizing the death of things which were never alive in the first place? Wouldn't we want to overlook death in a virtual world and allow these stupid fish to keep swimming?
This brings me to the E-reader. It has been mentioned in a previous blog that E-readers do not have the ability to carry our coffee stains, dog-ears and the scents of our days. Is this a loss or is this overcoming something we loose in physical objects?
I'm not sure all of these add up. I just like the virtual fish.
Well we don't want to necessarily say that just because the medium changes, it can't show signs of wear. Haven't you noticed the fingertip smudges on your keyboard, or seen how sweat can stick on a cell phone? It's gross, maybe, but it's real: new media objects are *still* physical objects. And that finger tapping on the mouse pad, feeding the fish? There's your somatic experience: you are interacting with a machine that is displaying a animal-like image. We have to remember that there has never been a 'pure' moment when humans interacted with a 'real' external world, unmediated. Every experience in the world is also a mediation...virtual experiences not withstanding. Objects change, but we never get 'less' physical. At least, that's my sense of things. How this will play out with e-readers? Let's see!
ReplyDeleteAnd I sort of wonder whether the changes couldn't be seen as positive, instead of negative. Never again will a paperback fall apart or lose a page, prompting you to have to buy a new book. Of course, one can break the e-reader, but the book should still be there, on the computer and back-up memory stick or hard drive.
ReplyDeleteI do realize that we have nostalgia for the personalities we assign to our books; I just keep wondering why we are so afraid to let them change, or die, just as the electronic fish do.
Honestly, I love the feel of a book. Its the touch, smell, and look of them. There's something old and deep about them. So when it comes to whether or not we are loosing something - I don't think we loose the literature itself, but we are looking at the literature differently.
ReplyDeleteLiterature, when it comes to the ereader, will be different to me. I'm not sure it will agree with me, but I'm game.
I still want to be allowed to sit in the grass or drink a coffee with it though.
perhaps letting go of our physical associations of what it means to read a 'good book' can help us humans become less materialistic? We can have more opportunities to step back and realize that although a novel may be very inspiring and incredibly moving, at the end of the day, it too is just another physical object - what is meaningful from it, we carry with us everywhere.
ReplyDeleteIn all these optimistic hopes and ideas, I still don't know what to do about needing to highlight text!! Does the ipad let you highlight?