Do you cuddle your kindle???

When you look around a classroom on almost any college campus, instead of seeing attentive faces and students furiously writing notes, you’ll see the shining backs of computers and hear the faint click of computer keys. And yet, I can remember when computers were a luxury item, not something that almost everyone over the age of 6 relies on to get through the day. Think back to when we were in elementary school though, instead of that thousand-dollar computer, what was in your backpack? Pencils, crayons, scented markers, and BOOKS!

If you were to ask a second grader today if he or she could find something on Google, I’m sure that they could complete the task with relative ease. If you asked that same second grader to instruct you on how to use the Dewey Decimal System in a library, on the other hand, you might be more likely to be greeted with a blank stare. I can remember curling up with my favorite book in front of a fire and getting lost in my own head. Now we just grab the latest Kindle and download whatever “book” we think might hold our attention for more than an hour. This is obviously a slight exaggeration, but I think you can see where this is headed.

With the emergence of the laptop, the tablet, and items such as the Kindle, the need (and maybe even the demand) for real books is diminishing. Will our children ever own a book, or will they be carrying their Kindle to class in order to discuss last night’s reading of Tom Sawyer? While we can obviously still read the words of the authors we have grown to love, I think that some of the magic, some of the wonder, of reading is going to be lost when the day comes that books are simply collectors items. Falling asleep with a computer on your chest is not nearly as satisfying as clutching your favorite book as you struggle to read just one more page before you’ll let yourself close your eyes. I think it’s almost a certainty that books will become a thing of the past, I only hope that children will still get to experience the relaxing joy of holding onto a musty book with a cracked spine as they nod off to sleep.