Maybe there won’t be fires

burning_book2Airlock Alpha has a great piece on Ray Bradbury’s classic “Fahrenheit 451.” The author wonders whether changing technology — not fire-happy totalitarians — ultimately will spell the death of the printed word.

I tend to agree with him that the evolution away from print media has both its good and bad sides. As a former reporter, I’m sickened to see newspaper after newspaper biting the dust. I’m also disturbed that so much of the generation raised on text messages and videogames is indifferent to books.

But, at the same time, I’m not sure I want to go back to the days before the Internet gave us instant access to a whole universe of information.

The Net can be a great democratizing and educational force. Let’s just hope human beings can figure out how to use it without casting aside other equally important forms of communication.

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