Computers And Social Media Are (Still) Books, But Twitter is Not

January 26th, 2012

Look around you. Right in front of your face. On your screen. How many book-related terms can you find? I will start you off: bookmark, cut, copy, paste, desktop, notebook, clipboard, page, file, folder.

We understand computers through the imprimatur of books. When those first Dells and Apples started rolling off the assembly line, we needed some help understanding them, something familiar with which to navigate, conceptualize, and just plain figure out these then-revolutionary devices. So we drew upon books to structure our gradual accommodation to writing on computers.

We did the same thing to help people make the transition to the book.  Romans invented the codex, or a series of bound pages. Codices had advantages over the then-popular scroll.  A bunch of bound paper is easier to navigate than a scroll. Plus, you can write on both sides of parchment. Not to mention bulky papyri wrapped around wooden poles were none too easy to organize, store and access (Those of us who attend synagogue are reminded weekly of the physical limitations of scrolls.) But scrolls do have some advantages. Let me ask you this: are you getting a bit bored right now? Are you are reading on a screen, and want to check your email, but feel you should at least see where I am going with? Go ahead. Skip to the end.

Aha! What did you just do?  Did you, perchance, scroll?

It took centuries for people to get comfortable enough with the codex to finally give up (almost) on the scroll. As we have become acclimated to storing our documents digitally, we do not need those cute folder icons to help us figure out where to put files. Our children have fewer or no associations with cardboard clipboards and metal paper clips. We will slowly jettison these print-based metaphors for organic, computer-based ones.

Social media is also still a book—with one notable exception. Facebook (duh), Blogs (web “logs”) and email. But then we get to ….Twitter.

Aha!

update: after tweeting a link to this post, I was roundly schooled by several very smart book historians on my arguments above, which they convinced me overgeneralized print culture, books and, mostly, the crucial, contentious issue of filing. 

comments

  1. JHoward replied on January 26th, 2012.

    It looks like @tcarmody, @wynkenhimself and others are taking care of the book-history arguments and quibbles on Twitter, so I’ll comment on the idea that “we will slowly jettison” the metaphors at issue here.

    First, is there such a thing as an “organic, computer-based” metaphor? I guess it depends on the definition of “organic.” And if we’ve organized a new set of technologies to resemble the old ones in some way, is it so easy, or even desirable to throw out the older metaphors? I’m not sure.

    Second, I hope we don’t just dump the older metaphors in favor of bright shiny new ones. More and more I love how language is a living museum of how we used to live. I’m thinking of expressions like “put the horse before the wagon.” Not many of us have horses or wagons now, not where I live, anyway. But it’s pleasant to be reminded that there are, or were, horses and wagons out there, and that they used to be part of our everyday technologies. Even the irksome “CC” on email at least hints at the carbon copies that used to be the bane of offices everywhere. That’s kind of neat–history layered into and, in a sense, preserved in language. I’d hate to lose that. Am I just old-fashioned? I think it’s more than that. Living online as much as we do now, we can use reminders that there’s a physical world out there–a world in which a ball can still get moved down the field, or a horse can (but shouldn’t be) put before the wagon, or…name your metaphor.

  2. Anne Trubek replied on January 26th, 2012.

    Jen: I am not sure the answer to your question about “organic.” I’ll have to think about some more, as I will also think about many of the book history issues that I was taken to task for earlier. (Teaches me to have such smart friends!)

    I don’t want us to dump old metaphors, either–like you I find it a particular pleasure to discover them as well. Skeumorphs FTW (or retronyms). The post might have been better read as part of a larger rhetorical move I am making elsehwere on this blog which goes something like this: writing is changing. Quickly. And those of us who do it, teach it and struggle with it might consider looking forward instead of backwards to figure out how it should be done, could be done, might be assessed. We need a new set of rules–and maybe to update a few of our metaphors.

    Clearly, though, I have many more rows to hoe. I hope you and my other whip-smart colleagues will keep me in line on online writing.

  3. Jennifer Howard replied on January 29th, 2012.

    Anne,

    One thing I love about language is how it adapts to changing circumstances–organically, if you like. Do we need to push metaphors to evolve? I’m not sure.

    Now you’ve got me thinking about the nature of writing itself. Is it *writing* that’s changing fast or writing/publishing technologies or both? Is there a risk that we’ll see this moment as a revolution when it’s really more of an evolution? The bibliographers can tell you a cautionary tale about seeing reductive readings of Gutenberg’s invention as a dramatic break with the past. There may be a similar caution here.

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