A) Hello, Blogdom!
B) This post serves as an adjunct to Lesley’s earlier post on “The Experience of Reading” and Kerry’s “The Price We Pay.” And perhaps I echo Keaton's fear.
I love to read the New York Times. More so, I love to read American newspapers. Not only because they give me exciting stories about the world, but because I pride myself in knowing the technique of reading them. As anybody knows, if you don’t hold the newspaper in the right way, it might come apart (some pages will come misaligned, etc.). The newspaper reader’s technique involves (a) holding it in the right way (b), taking out the small “packages” of information contained within the paper (that is, taking out the “arts” or “business week,” mini-magazines in themselves, from the body of the newspaper) and (b) being okay with the fact that an article will be scattered all over the newspaper (the one that starts on A2 continues on A18, and so forth). Furthermore, there are also proper ways of putting the newspaper in your bag so that it doesn’t dismember itself.
While this may be common knowledge to the average newspaper reader, it is something that I have had to get used to. Back where I live, in Puerto Rico, most newspapers have more of a “book” or “magazine” format, where you just… well, turn the pages. In the NYT, if you want to read the Arts section, you have to literally separate that segment. Indeed, in some way, you ‘dismantle’ a part of the paper. The NYT consists of a pool of little “packages” of information which the reader selects, as if selecting a particular pencil from a drawer. This feeling of “taking out a package” from a “drawer” is made all the more manifest by the physical format of the NYT.
(As far as reading newspapers goes, I am still very much a padawan. Much like Luke Skywalker at the beginning of “A New Hope,” if I were to be given a NYT while blindfolded, in fifteen minutes there would be a mess of papers all around the room. But I love to read it, and I love to feel it: the texture of the paper, the typeface, and the small columns of clustered letters, the accidental ink blots on the corner of the page—you name it. Moreover, I love knowing that as I walk down the halls of Loyola, the newspaper lies neatly folded among my books in my backpack, waiting to be read before it is thrown to the trash—or recycle bin.)
Enter: digital media in its various forms. That is, the internet, the iPhone, the e-reader, and so forth. All of these have been seen as threats to the old, clunky but lovable newspaper in print.
So now I have an iPhone; and in my iPhone, I’ve got a Twitter app. I follow the BBC, the NYT, CNN, Barack Obama, and The Onion, among others. I can see their headlines on my screen and click on those which interest me the most. Much like the different physical packages of information that I select from the newspaper, here I select digital packages and read those which I prefer. Because it really must come down to that—I can’t read all the overwhelming information from all the news sources.
Which leads me to what Barry Schwartz called the paradox of choice. I will not repeat his lecture here (though I have provided a link to a video in which he explains it). But it all boils down to this: in our society, we have been taught that we have the “choice” to do whatever we want. We choose our food, our pants, our lovers, our religion. And that’s great. But what happens when you go to a supermarket and you see that there are over 50 breakfast cereals you can choose? Or that once you choose to be a Christian, you have to choose what kind of Christian you want to be (do you want to be an Evangelical, a Catholic, or one of the Jesus Camp kids?).
I remember going to The Strand bookstore (’18 Miles of Books!’) in New York this past Spring Break. Three floors. Stacks, stacks, and more stacks. The advertisement does not lie: there are eighteen miles of books in this store. I was overwhelmed. Why? Because I didn’t know what choice to make, amidst this mist of choices. Thus, the paradox of choice.
Wouldn’t we be facing the same dilemma with digital media? With digital media, there is no limit to the amount of books we can have in a store—we can have 18, 18,000, or 18,000,000 miles of virtual books, for all we care.
Since the state does not (and cannot) control the flow of information (otherwise this would be a totalitarian state, which the twentieth century taught us was a big no-no), then it must let the information run free. But if information runs free with such great numbers, whose brain would be big enough to take it in?
The physical newspaper, even if it is clunky, limits this wide panorama, and allows me to focus on this or that article—on this or that “package of information.” The newspaper is a drawer; but the virtual world is an endless archive.
Rolando: I see what you mean about the art of "dismantling" a newspaper. I feel like a grown up when I handle the paper well! But what many people on this blog would argue is that technology like e-readers too come with their physical actions that we may even come to sentamentalize. At least I would argue that.
ReplyDeleteAs for getting overwhelmed by the abyss of the virtual... I dont think you have too much to worry about. Information that is available online is not that much different than information that is available at a store... accept maybe you can find a more specific, less accessible peice of text online! Maybe I am being too optimistic about this though. All this information definitely wont be free. There are fees, and that feeds into the legal (and ethical) debate of if culture should come at a price.
There are many layers of choices in your post. For one, when you pick up a newspapers, what section do you read? Do you read every article? Do you choose to skim? What newspaper are you even reading? Most big cities have two different newspapers. And if you are well balanced and want different sides, you'll read the Times PIc, the Miami Herald, The NY Times. You'll read CNN and BBC websites, maybe even whatever trashy yahoo article you catch a glimpse of. Then there's news stations.
ReplyDeleteDigital media merely expands our scope of choices, and you were right in saying this. Yet... aren't you overwhelmed when you have to find a book in our library and have to turn down stacks of books organized in a bizarre manner? I think you said it best in a personal conversation to me when you were retelling your experience at the strand: "It was too much." Thus, the physical presence and sensory overload of books can be overwhelming, but it is a different sense of too many choices that unlimited knowledge and sources like digital media is. Does that makes sense? (I'm just interested in what you said and felt like responding with more questions and comments)
(I am currently taking a break from my final paper for my philosophy class. I have decided to post a brief comment here.)
ReplyDeleteGood points, good points!
The virtual world, created by the human mind, is, after all, a replication of the phenomenal world of human perception. I heard that there is a certain mathematical theorem that states that a computer cannot possibly produce a "random" list of numbers, since such list would be produced by algorithms which are themselves based on order. The point of mentioning this is that anything that the human being creates is going to be a replication of what he has already experienced.
Thus, as both of you point out, the weight of the "choice paradox" could be just as well felt in the virtual world as it can in the physical world. (I am mindful of Dr. Schaberg's tip regarding putting pressure on the "physical vs. virtual" dichotomy--but it seems useful in this case...if that makes sense.)
A story:
The strand sells a shitload of a shitload books, and very cheap, too. You would think that for this reason you could spend less money there. Yet the burden of the amount is such, that people usually end up spending more money there than they would in a typical bookstore. A friend of mine who lives in NY spent $40 ("And I've probably only read twenty five dollar's worth," she later added); I myself spent $50 (not a good choice) for six books and a tote bag, and I've only read probably ten dollar's worth.
Returning to the digital media world:
How much would this be amplified in the digital media world, where the owner of the shop doesn't have to pay for, say, the cost of a 'physical' location (the building, the stacks, the termites)?
Lesley points to this:
"the physical presence and sensory overload of books can be overwhelming, but it is a different sense of too many choices that unlimited knowledge and sources like digital media is." (yes, it makes sense)
I'll have to agree with Dr. Schaberg here; there is a sensory element in the online link (and thus aesthetic which, like Sarah Jordan said, is thus liable for sentimentalization). How would our spending activities be affected by the link?
How about our aesthetic sensibilities?
And how would, consequently, our reading activities?
(I apologize in advance if these issues have already been brought up in previous entries. I am trying to catch up.)