Start Date: ~2013
There is an old saying “May you live in interesting times”.
I was listening to a history lecture the other day. While discussing the ancient era of human and proto-human existence it was stated that from 700,000 BC to 70,000 BC there was only one tool, the hand axe, essentially a stone sharpened by having its edges chipped into sharp cutting surfaces. Imagine over 600,000 years with no change in technology.
AIR TRAVEL
Roughly 120 years ago the Wright brothers first achieved a few seconds of airborne flight [1]. Now annually untold millions, perhaps billions, of people spend hours, in worst case days, in airports and on planes either blessing or cursing those gentlemen for laying the path for the advent of long security lines, TSA pat downs, baggage checks, cramped seating, ground delays, turbulence, hovering, and waiting for gate service, as they attempt to make their way from hub to hub across the country and the world.
AUTOMOBILES
Automobiles were first manufactured in a production setting when Henry Ford installed the first conveyor belt in 1913 in Michigan to build cars on an assembly line [2]. Now those who live in almost any metropolitan area are held hostage to gridlock which consumes vast portions of their daily lives.
MUSIC
If you were around for the mid 20th century you probably had a record player. Your parents or grandparents may have called it a “Victrola” [3]. It was based on something called a phonograph invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, making it possible to record sound by etching grooves into a disk. Much of the basics remained the same for nearly a century. Since approximately 1970 you may have listened to the same music via: record player, cassette tape player, 8-track tape, CD, MP3, iPod and now iPhone. In your youth you spent time after school at Tower Records debating not just the music, but the album cover art and liner notes. Now you simply download an electronic file to your collection of thousands of titles. Please try not to zone into the music while crossing the street.
TELEPHONES
The telephone, patented by Alexander Graham Bell, allowed people for the first time to speak across some distance by way of transmitter, receiver, and what would be known as a “land line”[4]. For much of the late 20th century the phone was a fairly unchanging staple in the home. You had one or two, usually in the kitchen, a bedroom, or on a desk. They were stationary. They lasted for 40 years or so. You dialed, it rang, someone picked up and you spoke. It all worked as advertised. Long distance was an extra fee per minute. Families often set aside a time on Sunday, the most inexpensive day, to contact each other. You would sit down in a quiet space and dial your loved one and give them your full and undivided attention.
After several decades we were introduced to cell phones. They are small and can be carried everywhere, sadly. As such they are so ubiquitous that you certainly find yourself wishing to strangle someone who insists on sharing their phone call with fellow diners, shoppers, or passengers. People store all of their contact information on a gadget that is easily dropped or lost. Restaurants are filled with diners that sit at a table taking calls while ignoring their companions. In the past if you were a transplant surgeon a restaurant could bring a phone to you if you were needed. But now everyone goes through life as if they are a critical member of Mission Control. It is an odd dynamic to see people go through public spaces distracted by conversations with people who aren’t really present, while ignoring those who are in their physical space.
TELEVISION
By the 1960’s most middle class American families had a television. It was similar to your stereo in that it was a true piece of furniture, both in its size and the quality of the cabinet in which it was housed. The TV has experienced a number of intriguing transitions.
About the time of the 1990’s the cabinetry was replaced by plastic and a full scale “Size Matters” arms race began as the screens became bigger and bigger until entire rooms were configured around them. This was particularly desirable for Super Bowl parties. Though at the other extreme, in the circa 2010 era, Apple began producing electronic tablets, known as iPads, and “smart” cell phones, aka iPhones, which made it possible to watch televised programming on smaller and smaller handheld devices. I confess that when my late mother inquired as to why someone would want to watch a movie on a few inch screen I replied that I have no idea. I don’t buy the devices I just buy the stock. That has served me well in general.
The other major change was the content. For decades there were 3 national channels and perhaps a few local channels or government broadcasting. Content was fairly family friendly. News was 30 minutes of local followed by 30 minutes of national, allowing for some time to verify information. There was no swearing or sex. Romance was nuance, violence was tame.
Ted Turner gave us cable TV, an additional channel for which the customer paid. It had 24 hours news, which allowed for convenience and repetition. Most days not that much happens. Somehow it all led to reality TV, generally debauched details of the lives of people who are nothing like anyone we know, and seem to follow scripts and storylines, also not so much like real life. I am not sure whether it is to be aspirational ( I wish I could have a shoe closet the size of my house.) or a cautionary tale (Thank heavens my life is not as much of a train wreck as those people.)
BOOKS
You are probably thinking this is an odd entry in a discussion of modern technology, as it is both a centuries-old medium and not per se technology, or at least not until the recent advent of e-books.
There were texts manually inscribed before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid-1400’s. But given the effort required, they were rare and very expensive. Then the press made it possible to mass market copies of text and thus make the content affordable for the mainstream population. That itself increased literacy.
The most commonly owned book was the Bible. In the early 1500’s Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin into German so that families could study it. This increased reading in the home and became an element of the Protestant Reformation. For centuries the printing press made it possible for other causes to be promoted through distributed tracts. Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense“ [5], published in January 1776, argued the case for freedom from Great Britain. It was a widely read bestseller that pushed American public opinion toward declaring independence.
By the 20th century most towns of any size had a library and probably a book store. But in a matter of decades bookstores reached their peak expansion and then, suddenly, all but disappeared. Borders, a classic independent book store, was founded by Thomas and Louis Borders in 1971 in Ann Arbor Michigan [6]. It became a core hangout for the University of Michigan community and was known for very knowledgable staff. At one point a few other college town stores were open. But then it was sold to a corporation in the early 1990’s with 21 stores. Over a decade it became ubiquitous along with Barnes and Noble. Book stores were social venues with coffee shops, book clubs, and reading events for children. All things you cannot get online. And for true readers there was still the thrill of going to see new offerings as well as checking our favorite authors. Even more intriguing were the accidental discoveries. While browsing the shelves for some book, your eyes caught sight of an interesting book jacket. You picked it up and thought, “I’ve never read a novel set in Mughal India, Why not?” And you discovered something new.
But then came Amazon. They sent you books in the mail at a discount because they didn’t have the cost of physical retail units and staff. Books, unlike clothes, don’t need to be tried on. They are the right color and size, so they are more amenable to order by mail. So we got lazy and sold our souls and we sold them cheap. As of January 2012 Borders was out of business. Amazon, the internet retailer most responsible for the end of bookstores saw more growth in sales of e-readers than in actual books. Journals and media are increasingly limited to online content.
In 2010 Nicholas Carr wrote “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” [7], a book about the internet wiring our brains for distraction so that we have trouble concentrating enough to read an entire book. It was not an indictment of the internet but a study of the effects of a medium that is inherently interruptive (links to links to links). We have probably all done some skimming in a few tough reads in high school or college. But if books become more like an online article, complete with links to other works or related information, one wonders if readers will lose the instinct to uni-task and read books beginning to end. Unbelievably the author writes of meeting a Rhodes Scholar, in the study of philosophy, who felt it unnecessary to ever read a book. He felt that all the information he needed he could acquire on the internet via Google. Tragically it seems that some schools have already given up bothering to produce readers. A recent article in Atlantic magazine highlighted a professor who teaches a great-books course for Columbia University [8]. His students indicated that they struggle mightily with their literary assignments. In the fall of 2022 one young student found the courage to inform the professor that she had never been assigned to read an entire book in high school. They would read excerpts or articles, but never a complete book.
Education without books?
As we approach the 600th anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, a tool that changed the world in movements from the Protestant Reformation to the American Revolution, are we to consider it possible that we will see it come to pass without printed texts or book lovers to read them?
Yes, it seems we live in Interesting times.
REFERENCES
[1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wright-brothers
[2] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fords-assembly-line-starts-rolling
[5] Paine, Thomas, “Common Sense”, 1776
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group
[7], Carr, Nicholas, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain”, 2010