As Sven Birkerts opens up his introduction to the Gutenberg Elegies, I started to think about how today’s world has changed since I was born in 1992. The computer, color TV, and cellphone all were invented and I even had the game Jump Start Kindergarten teach me how to do my ABC’s. Technological advances like these were already available to me: they are all I have ever known, and I have grown accustomed to their usage.

To Birkert’s credit, a man of his age and background is sure to be in shock when computers are introduced to a book and paper world. Imagine having the same book you read when you were in grade school now available to anybody over the digital screen of a computer, or having to go from listening baseball be reported over a radio to being watched on a TV. I cannot blame him for being so against technology. Books are dwindling in this generation, as can be seen when The Oxford Dictionary recently announced that they might discontinue their paper books. As he stated in his Introduction the 2006 Edition “Arguably, they ‘write’ and ‘read’ more than they ever have,” (pg xii). Computer users these days must “read” and “write” to find what they are looking for. However, most of the time I find that this reading and writing is too skin-deep, aka not deep/strong enough to make ourselves a better writer. As an academic student, I hope to see that technology will help us for the better and not for the “ADD” society that he believes in.

In his essay Perseus Unbound, he also talked about how interactive video technology has, “Muscled their way into the formerly textbound precincts of education” (134). Although the program ‘Perseus’ that he introduced is a new learning tool that allows students to study Greek in a new way, it is “a means less to instrumental application than to something more nebulous: understanding” (135).

For once, I actually am in agreement with him on this position. Electronic encyclopedia’s like that of Perseus really do make us less understanding of information. Facts are too often spoon fed to us in today's modern technological world rather than being learned by spending time with the information and understanding it. Without the use of reading, we lose our deep thinking abilities.

In all honesty, coming into my Eng125 class, I had thought that the ideas that you talked about in your introduction were such blasphemy. However, after reading through your essays, I can honestly say my mind has changed. Technology, as much as I hate to admit it, does have negative effects on us. I still love it, but I know and am more aware of the fact that there will be a time when enough is enough. As a reader, I take my reading more seriously knowing well that it can only help me in my endeavors of not only becoming a better reader, but a better human being.