The Demise of Paper

At least according to no less than Bill Gates, interviewed today in the Guardian.

Magazines and newspapers would eventually become redundant in their existing form, with interactive, personalised content delivered to handheld devices. "A lot of the reading that's taking place, the richness to be able to call up anything will take over," he said.

Mr Gates pointed to students as an example of how the world would shift from books to bytes. "Within four or five years, instead of spending money on textbooks they'll spend a mere $400 or so buying that tablet device and the material they hook up to will all be on the wireless internet with animations, timelines and links to deep information. But they'll be spending less than they would have on text books and have a dramatically better experience."

Hmm. I'm not convinced.

In The Social Life of Information, authors John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid describe a research trip one of them made to Portugal. In an old archive he had to read correspondence from the 1700’s. The dust raised by opening each of the old letters triggered asthma attacks. One day a fellow historian came in and to his astonishment pored over another box of letters in a very unusual way. “He read barely a word. Instead, he picked out bundles of letters and, in a move that sent my sinuses into shock, ran each letter beneath his nose and took a deep breath, at times almost inhaling the letter itself but always getting a good dose of dust. Sometimes, after a particularly profound sniff, he would open the letter, glance at it briefly, make a note and move on. Choking behind my mask, I asked him what he was doing. He was he told me, a medieval historian (a profession to avoid if you have asthma). He was documenting outbreaks of cholera. When that disease occurred in a town in the eighteenth century, all letters from that town were disinfected with vinegar to prevent the disease from spreading. By sniffing for faint traces of vinegar that survived 250 years and noting the date and source of the letters, he was able to chart the progress of cholera outbreaks.” I’ve yet to come across the e-mail I could smell.

Comments

[Tom Hume]

Sure, but isn't that like saying the longboat is still a valid form of transport because archaeologists like to spend years delicately brushing them our of the ground?

[Mark]

OK - perhaps I didn't say it well enough. My point is that paper carries a lot of contextual information with it, that can enrich our understanding.

Generally I don't think digital communication does. You'll probably now say yes, but what about meta data - surely that gives context. Yes - but in a very limited way.

[Tom Hume]

I'm with you on the usefulness of metadata btw - the big problem seems to be getting it in there in as painless a manner as possible, rather than making use of it.

But can you think of any examples of more common-place contextual information which paper has and digital lacks?

I can think of a few that I'd associate with paper which all can be replicated digitally: fonts, provenance (the Guardian legend at the top of the page vs guardian.co.uk in your address bar), and layout (e.g. 3-column "newspaper" feel).

But the only one I can think of which seems unique to paper is stock. I guess my point is, yes, paper can perhaps have more context by virtue of being physical; but 99.99% of the time today this context isn't used to any degree.

[James]

Do you think the context-removing quality of digital media is responsible for the way

People are used to customising their mobile interface, inboxes, websites, blogs and so on.

There's also this parallel intertextualisation thing going on in other areas - the language might be a bit trite in places, but Trendwatching.com is stuffed with examples of how physical products and services increasingly allow the customer to play a part in producing or authoring them. If you look at fashion on the high street for example, the importance of accessorising or altering your clothes to make them unique is really prevalent. You get more Zaras, H&Ms and Topshops doing really time-limited lines (although the irony is that you get the same looks done in a million different ways). In publishing, Marmalade magazine and other style magazines are extensively art directed, but start from the concept of DIY cut-and-paste. Someone who uses a similar idea in intriguing ways is the children's book author Lauren Child.

Anyway, I digress. The question was, do you think there is a relationship between digital and the way the idea of context is changing in these other areas? If so, is it a corollary, or a causal relationship?

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