Paper v. Electronic v. People

It's amazing all the changes that are taking place in the writing world because of the internet.

I do have to agree that it does save our trees to not use so much paper, but I really like having an actual book in my hands when I am reading.

I have also heard about the iPad becoming a student tool. Eventually all of the textbooks are going to be converted to electronic text books and all students will be required to purchase an iPad, but the books will be much cheaper.

The downside for me to E-text books is that when I am studying I find it easier to have everything in front of me with little colored tabs marking what material is where. I like to be able to flip back and forth to find things. On an electronic device you can't do this. Maybe they will eventually come up with a solution to do this but who knows.?

With a book, if you're looking for something you can thumb through until you find it. With an e-book, you have to type in a search term. But if you don't know what you're looking for, you have no way of finding anything without reading every single page that may be available.

I know that publishers are going out of business left and right but new jobs will be created. I mean someone will have to manage all of the internet files in whatever form they may be in. Their jobs will just be done on the computer with less paper surrounding them.

Now, in the court houses going electronic is a fantastic idea because there is so much paper that has to be saved for a thousand years, that would clean up much needed space. It's also more difficult to go through a million files as opposed to going to the computer, typing in a case name and it pops up right away. Brilliant!

But the disadvantage to that is all of this flying all over cyberspace where any half-assed hacker could have access to. Not to mention the constant human error of e-mailing the wrong things to the wrong people.

It also appears to me that people have become socially retarded as a result of all the on-line capability. For instance, I haven't received a bill yet to make a payment. Now call me old fashioned, but I still like to pay my bills by snail mail with a paper check. I just feel safer that way. Call me crazy. So I called the Harley Customer Service Center (which they need to rephrase Customer Service now) and he told me that I could go on line and just pay my bill there. I told him I don't like to do that and he acted so irritated with me that I was even able to get through to him and past the automated bitch. Really??? What is this world coming to?

AND, when I am actually with people face to face, it seems that a majority of them sit there and text message or check their facebook status every 10 seconds. It's seriously like sitting with a crack addict. They are surrounded my people and they would rather make stupid, irrelevant comments back and forth on the internet. Seriously??? Am I that uninteresting that you would rather stare at a computer screen? I know, I know, it's not about me, but for christ sake!

Okay, sorry this turned into a rant, but I feel much better now that I got this off my chest.

What do you guys think about this whole shabang?

~Live Happy