A Valentine for my Macbook
Posted February 18, 2014 by Carolyn Lucas
Roses are red
Violets are blue
My dear Macbook
I love you.
For a long time, I was a pen-and-paper kinda gal. If you read my most recent post about office supply rehab, this should come as no surprise to you. However, in the last few years of college and all of graduate school I have found myself starting to take more and more notes on the computer. This can be attributed to the fact that I was an art history major taking a Japanese art class, and my mutilated spellings of “Hiroshige” along with descriptive phrases like “View of Mt Fuji with Plants and bridge No. 2” led me to need to insert the actual piece of art itself, and since then I realized how much more easy it is for me to take notes on a computer.
It hasn’t stopped there. I have started buying and reading my textbooks on my iPad, which is an absolutely amazing resource when it comes to not having to lug textbooks on the train if I want to refer to them during class. I have linked my Simmons email up to my regular gmail account and can review important emails and send responses or replies from the train. Occasionally, I do get a flashback of little Carolyn in fourth grade with her hardcopy of “The Island of the Blue Dolphins” or “Follow the Stars,” and I wonder what she would think of all of this current technology.
I know that a lot of people still prefer to read things in hardcover. For a lot of books, I am the same way – while I’m reading on my computer I often lose focus and check Facebook or Reddit, and sometimes I yearn for the nostalgia of my paperback “Redwall.” But one of the recurring themes of library school is that you can hold out for as long as you like, but technology is taking over – and we are really stuck in the crosshairs, aren’t we. Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to be all-digital, all-analog, or find a combination of the two. The only thing I am sure of at the moment is that regardless of advances in the field of aviation, there will never be a day when I can’t read a paper book during take off…and at the very least that constant is enough to leave the metaphysical questions for another day.
What do you think, dear readers? Do you still take notes with a pen and paper, and buy hardcover books? Or have you entirely made the switch over to the digital world?