Opinion: Print has a purpose

By: Joe Provenzano

We sit at a precipice, with technology ready to take us over the edge so we no longer need the conventions of the past.  Newspapers struggle to make ends meet as society moves online or to TV.  Publishers are moving more toward print-on-demand to eliminate surplus books going unread, as more people buy eBooks.  Eventually that won’t even happen.

The United States Post Office is going bankrupt.  The only thing holding it up is the Constitution, which requires it.  People now send more emails than mail.  Today we see more texting than actual talking on the phones people are carrying.

Technology is great.  All hail technology.  However, mourn our inevitable downfall.  Technology is the harbinger of the next human Dark Age.  If we continue on our current course of replacing print with electronic media we will be at a loss when it gets turned off.

It isn’t a question of if it will get turned off, but when.  It could be a meteor slamming into the Earth or some rogue country, like North Korea, deciding they need to solve their problems with a nuclear bomb.  It doesn’t matter.  The point is, when it happens, if we don’t retain print we will have no records.

There will be a gap in our history, assuming anyone is left, and the world will plummet into another Dark Age.

Print has its purpose.  It withstands the test of time.  A computer has an average life span of five to six years.

If the lights go out I’ll grab a candle and a book.  What will you have?

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