By Akrit Agarwal
You’re probably asking yourself why that question is important right now. Does the medium on which we store our knowledge, as a species, really matter? The simple answer is yes, although it cannot be printed in black and white; it necessitates grayscale.
Longevity immediately jumps to mind. Is paper storage less durable or long-lived than digital storage? The answer is confusing. Paper naturally decays and crumbles with time, but a sufficiently powerful electromagnetic pulse, such as a solar flare, could completely wipe out all digitally stored information. In fact, a NASA article cited a source stating that the possibility of an event such as that occurring in the next ten years is as high as twelve percent. There’s no single victor here.
Convenience-wise, digital storage wins, hands down. Far easier to trove through, far easier to find information and far easier to store compactly, it’s simply easier to manage than paper. It’s also cheaper, requiring less labour and storage space (land) than paper, which also grows more delicate as time passes.
Complications arise when neuroscientific studies regarding the difference between the two are observed. A Norwegian study in 2015 proved that of the two groups reading the same material on digital and print, the individuals reading print scored higher on a test regarding the content. This was attributed to the brain’s perception of it as more “real” and the simultaneous involvement of more emotion due to the increased tangibility of the experience.
In addition, a survey of fifty teenagers revealed a dominant preference for print (74%). When asked why, most voters for paper concurred that it was a more engaging – “sensual”, according to one voter – experience. An alternative opinion was that it allowed for a better connection with the information being presented.
Today, if libraries were to be digitized en masse, there would likely be major changes in terms of the way information is accessed. Location and distance would no longer prove an obstacle. Digitization would also allow multiple users to access the same resource simultaneously. However, several librarians would be let go due to the obsolescence of their position – cataloguing and monitoring would no longer be necessary. It is also likely that inadequate infrastructure in developing economies would affect the reliability and safety of the resources stored.
It is important to note that a combination of the two seems the most plausible, finding the middle ground between two polarized perspectives, and common. Of course, there’s always the possibility that we’re reading too deeply into this; our species could just really love the idea of chopping down trees.
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