Instead of reading the required readings, I took a crack at Applen’s Print and the Late-Age of Print. In this section, Applen writes about his reaction and thoughts to what ‘Print’ and ‘Late-Age Print’ are. The first thing I noticed about this piece was how Applen wanted to step away from print meaning just books. Kind of how in class we want to step away from technology just being computers. In the text, print was split into 2 eras: Print and Late-Age of Print. The books, paper, and pen-anything written down basically was categorized into the Print Era. The Late Age of Print was when computers came along. And while it’s a different medium, it’s still being used to do the same thing. Communicate and have our thoughts out of our heads. Applen also goes into the pros and cons of each medium, which I found myself agreeing with.
Physical print, our books and whatnot, comes with a status. Applen wrote how the physicality of one’s thought comes with a respect for having to go through the process of revision, edits, and publishing, an idealization of the author, a synonym of perfection (because it’s a finished work and cannot be easily altered), unchanging but distant- because it’s rare that you will meet the author to discuss their works.
For digital writing, however, Applen believed it undermines the greatness of Print because it can be easily and constantly altered. It’s more accessible because anyone with a device is easily able to share their thoughts and upload them for all to see. It’s also seen as diminishing the efforts of carefully writing something until it’s perfect because nothing digital is set in stone.
Remedial
We then move to remedial, which was defined as a transformation or upgrade. And in this section, Applen makes an important note that we often think the remedial things are better and necessary, when not every remedial thing is positive. The example of email and mail is brought up, where the remedial thing is email. We think it is better because it’s efficient and fast. We can get a reply instantly, like text messages, instead of waiting forever to get a response by mail. But is it actually better? Texts have found a way to simplify everything: words, emotions, context. Instead of being thorough and careful with our words (like Applen explains), we become careless with what we say, because it can be cleared up instantly. There is no rewriting or trying to word what you’re feeling to the letter because an emoji can do that just as easily.
In my experience, it’s why a handwritten note is more exciting than a text. It shows how the person took their time to express feelings. And you can see their imperfections too, where they erased or crossed out words because it wasn’t enough, or how much time they spent trying to make their handwriting neat; it’s more intimate and personal. (READ THIS!!!) Anyway, Applen goes into medium vs. message and how often the medium overshadows the message. Applen uses the Mars Rover as an example, where the highlight was the Rover as a technology instead of highlighting what we found about Mars. How showing what we can do often overshadows the new thing that was discovered.
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