Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Book and its diminishing role in society.



The 1960s and 70s was an integral time towards the shift into a more electronically processed informative age. The Electric Information Age Book chronicles this time period by highlighting several occurrences that would forever shape the scope of book arts. As publication companies continued to die out, electronic companies began to slowly take over. However with many of the events occurring over 40 years ago, how has technology shifted even further?

In the current age of Internet and Digital Media, the book's current role in society is no longer one in which they are mandatory to survive. Currently the general public does not engage in reading physical books. Also contributing to this is that for many classes books are read online. This is to save costs, as well as time. However this has led to the decreased engagement the book now has with its reader. Books are now given small opportunities in order to engage the reader in a way that they would actually continue reading the book. Without a few strong opening chapters, there is no strong indicator for a reader that this book would be worth his time. Now with the current influx of information, our time must be further partitioned in order to decide which books would be worth our time. Book clubs, NY Times Bestsellers and general word of mouth help contribute to give suggestions for books, however I believe that books must be re-marketed in order for them to regain a commonplace in today's society.

–Michael Leng

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