Books and Social Media

            Books are a social device, and people are social creatures.  We are developed to operate based upon social circumstances.  Writing on the Wall illustrated scientific ties to the development of our brains and the social nature of our existence.  Thus, it’s natural that books and the emergence of print culture changed social interactions for humans indefinitely.

            The exploration into the development of print technology is relevant to modern culture even though it’s in the process of being steadily replaced by electronic books, because it’s still a relatively new media. While, yes, eBooks are a newer technology, the development of laser printers, which sped up and simplified the process of printing, did not come about until the twentieth century.  Furthermore, it continues to be relevant to study the process of bookmaking, because the way in which books are bound has not changed very much since the emergence of the folio method of binding.

            In looking toward our future, I learned that electronic paper and ink is a potential for the future, which both enforces and combats the argument that books are a dying art and will be replaced by devices such as the Amazon Kindle.  Digital ink would see the development of books of electronic paper that would be able to store a book upon upload, but then be wiped clean once the book has been read without leaving any marks on the paper.  This would potentiate the existence of physical books over simply a screen, such as on the Kindle.  On the other hand, it would exacerbate the extinction of libraries of physical books.

            Modern society is dominated by social media to the extent that it interferes often with physical interactions.  The readings we did for class illustrated the ways in which social media isn’t a new development, but has been a key method in establishing social groups since as far back as the Ancient Romans.  Socialites in Ancient Rome would exchange letters and scrolls through scribes in order to communicate and establish alliances. It was a means of gossip, the exchange of information being key in establishing a place in society and smaller groups of friends.  This continued all throughout the Revolutionary period in the United States, in which letters would be exchanged containing portions of newspapers and the sender would send notes in the margins or in their letters about their thoughts on the divisive news throughout the colonies.

            Social media today maintains key aspects reminiscent of its antecedents.  For example, it allows a public platform through which the average person can communicate their opinions on news and current events.  Through outlets such as Twitter and Instagram, people chose a penname to publish their work under, just as the writers would during the American Revolution so as not to receive punishment from the British who were trying to continue regulating the press of the colonists.  People would send articles and broadsides to their friends with comments in the margins, similar to sharing an article on Facebook where your friends can comment on it with their own opinions.

            The emergence of print culture was key in my life personally, because I am an English Major who intends to be a writer and loves the study of literature.  Print culture allowed for a future of being an author to be possible.  Even with the emergence of eBooks and print becoming a less popular medium, literature will always be present in some way.  From the point where books proliferated and literature was acceptable for the masses to indulge in, rather than the elite, the possibility that I could be come a writer was born.  Now, there is a medium in which I can publish my creative endeavors, whether the product of which will be created by a laser printer or on electronic paper.

            Furthermore, the development of printing technology made it so that the reproduction of literature was much easier and widespread.  This allowed for the preservation of historically important texts as well as the widespread distribution of all kinds of literature and writings.  Because of this, I am able to study an insurmountable variety of texts in my educational enterprises.  These texts being more accessible and easily reproduced has enabled me to study texts from hundreds of years ago through books that were printed in the modern days.

            The exploration into Books and Print Culture has enlightened me to a variety of aspects that have affected my life.  Every part of what we have studied in the class has culminated in my life today.  It has made my studies possible—both in writing and in reading analysis.  Beyond that, it is responsible for many of the conventions of social media and discussion that are present today.  It was an inevitable development based on our social nature, but it still allowed for an explosion in communication, making the world quite a bit smaller—and getting smaller every day.