For me, “the next big thing in electronic communications technology” will be in the area of wireless and mobile computing. Obviously, this is a means of communication that is pretty well developed already. The question, “In the future, will we do all our reading on smart phones?” isn’t something that needs too much thought. It seems as though, at least in the case of me and my friends, the main connection to the world is through smart phones. I read news articles, use Twitter (tweet), use Facebook, chat using instant messenging, and even sometimes do my homework on my smart phone. The truth is I can’t say that I enjoy it 100%. I still thoroughly enjoy picking up a print book or a newspaper. Now that I think about it, reading on a computer screen falls somewhere in the spectrum between smart phones and books. However, I would argue that smart phone use is essential and growing, especially with this generation of people who are now becoming adults. We don’t have time to sit down and read in front of the computer or to sit down to a cup of coffee in the morning while reading the paper. Maybe it’s because we’re in college, young and ambitious, energetic and still maturing. But it may actually be because we don’t like to be bored. I know I don’t. I load my plate up with as many obligations as I can find and then complain about it via Twitter until it’s all over. I think that smart phones will become another big alternative to the eBook and the Kindle very shortly. The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because it’s not as popular, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already seen the technology—the application is sitting in my marketplace, probably for free; just the app though, not the texts. And, yes, we will undoubtedly be doing more watching than reading in the future. Again, though, that’s speaking as though it’s not already true. I’m pretty certain that non-digital literature won’t die, but it will diminish. Books will become less expensive to stay current and meet supply and demand. But a file on a smart phone or computer which is essentially free to copy will be right there with it.
Archive for May 6th, 2011
In the future, the most fascinating developments will be in 3-D and immersion. In the future, there will be the possibility for people to enter stories, or video games and experience them first-hand. There have been some advances in this field with the goggles that allow the viewers to only view the movie that is inside the goggles. In the future, a person might be able to log into a computer and be completely immersed in whatever game they are playing, book they are reading, or movie they are watching. There are a few issues that are evident with these advances in technology. First, this could cause the literacy rate to plummet in society. If a person could simply watch a novel while being “in” the novel, why take the time to read the book? Also, the price on a project like this will likely be astronomical. Eventually, many years down the road, this technology could be available to just about everyone. But at first only the very wealthy could afford it.
Evan Clarke
With the speed technology is currently advancing, I think in the future the majority of people will actually be doing their reading online or at the very least using a digital reader like a Kindle. It probably won’t be soon, but there is a definite possibility that hundreds of years from now the physical print book may actually cease to exist, especially if you take into account how fast we cut down trees for paper and how slow it takes one tree to reach adulthood. I sincerely hope that in the future, no matter how far in the future, we don’t ever lessen our humanity by turning ourselves into cyborgs. If that ever did happen, I can at least take solace in the fact that I won’t be alive to experience it. 3-D immersion would be awesome, especially if we could step into a world like that in the movie Avatar. I don’t think social networking would ever replace literature as we know it. There are too many of us who still love to read and who will not substitute that for anything. The media that we use to do our reading may change, but not the novel will continue to exist.
Amoona Albadawi
I envision the future of technology to be sort of similar to where we are now. We are going to be using a lot of touch screen devices, such as tablets, in our everyday lives. Maybe newspapers will be e-ink—if they are still around. Even now, technology seems to be moving at a faster pace than people realize. The possibilities are becoming endless in what we can achieve using technology. Reading will still be a very large part of people’s everyday lives. I do not think that we’ll have any 3D reading, where the reader can step into a virtual world and read or write a story, but there will definitely be video games so advanced that it could seem like the virtual reality is real. Basically, I think the future of reading and writing is going to quickly make its way into flexible, portable tablets, with social networking, web 2.0, and the news being the main sources of reading. People will still read books on their tablets, but I think for the most part, tablets will be used for other purposes. However, in the future, print will not be dead, and books will remain a part of our lives for at least a few more decades.
Jordan Davis
