photo by moriza
This is the question Daniel Scocco poses over on Daily Blog Tips. Given the proliferation of information delivered via web sites, blogs, e-newsletters and other digital formats, I suppose you might think it’s a valid one. But I think it’s the wrong question to ask.
The introduction of radio didn’t kill newspapers. TV didn’t replace radio. The Internet probably won’t eliminate TV. And none of them have replaced books, which have been around for awhile now.
Use and purpose do change as new technologies are introduced. Newspapers may very well evolve away from print-based vehicle of news and information. Radio is worthless to those of us whose musical tastes stray from very rigid formats, but a great news resource for those of us who listen to NPR. And we’re not far from the day when TV is essentially a flat screen window that opens onto the Internet.
Book reading will continue to be necessary so long as books deliver value to the reader. When newspapers lose their ability to deliver eyes to advertisers, they die unless they find a new value proposition. Same with TV and radio as long as they’re all built on an advertiser-supported model.
The question isn’t whether reading books is necessary. It’s whether books continue to deliver content we value, in a format that is useful and accessible. I could easily argue that 90 percent of the Internet isn’t necessary when using this measure. Does that mean surfing the Web is no longer necessary?
But that’s a whole different discussion.
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