Calling all Books!

I was recently watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and the host made a reference to books about kids not knowing what they were anymore. He did however make a funny note reference of it though, he said that it was interactive because the pages could be turned and that information could be downloaded by running your finger near the letters and reading the words. This is a funny remark because many adults believe this to be completely true. Books have almost become obsolete. We have library’s that are full of books and they are soon becoming almost useless. My grandfather used to gather the kids around and tell stories about his childhood and most of the kids would try so hard to avoid it. We thought it was punishment from the holidays. With the introduction of the new Kindles and other plastic books, the new fangled computers that hold up to 3000 books in the form of text on a small computer you can hold in your hand and take anywhere, books are fast becoming cumbersome and obsolete. The stories told by word of mouth are just seen as punishment as the books are seen as heavy and useless. But can’t we change the minds of people? I can remember going into my local library and scanning the books and thinking about how a book must be a good read because the cover was tattered and gray from all of the hands that had passed it. Most of the generation is almost disgusted with the germs that are lurking on those pages. It is interesting to see the changes we are making, but we must also consider the books that haven’t made the “move” over to these new forms of information transfers. I know that I will miss the pretty covers and the books that had me intrigued just because I could hear their story calling me from the shelf. Long live the library and it’s long winding shelves of living memories!

Blogging!

It is fascinating to figure out that blogging can raise so many questions. I guess I never considered that my blogging could affect someone so deeply. We must consider that our words are being placed “out there” for everyone to see. While we often feel compelled to complain about coworkers or work conditions to our spouses, we can get in serious trouble for using the internet to do some steam blowing. The workplace can see this as a threat to the workplace running smoothly. “They fire the employee for the disparaging comments he made on the blog.” (Hudson, 40) They have the right to do this because most jobs are “At will” Which means they have the right to fire you at any time. While we feel that we have the right to speak our minds we might have to realize that it is our job and we might just need to keep some things off-line. It is also important to consider how blogging can be considered a problem for students in school as well. Cyber-bullying and putting information that might be harmful to the world needs to be thought about before we allow it to become main stream. Students should have to be held to a certain standard. I know that hurtful statements are usually found and even word of mouth can get the blog seen by so many viewers. It is absolutely important to protect our First Amendment Rights but to what extent should we protect those rights? When those words become offensive to the person they are being written about, we should have the right to stop it as well. We can argue that we should protect our First Amendment rights to free speech, but when that free speech begins to infringe on your right to freedom and the right to pursue happiness don’t you feel that something has to be done to protect that as well? If your child is being attacked daily through hurtful words on a blog, don’t you want to have a way to stop it? I know that we must consider where the blog was written, at school/home, but there has to be a way to stop harmful material from being published no matter where it is produced. “Legislators have responded in several states by passing laws against cyber-bullying, which criminalize online harassing and intimidation.” (Hudson, 71) This might make an impact that will stop some forms of harassment through the school systems. We can only hope that blogging will eventually only be for the purpose of spreading important information instead of using it for evil!

References

Hudson, David L. (Dec. 2007) “Blogging.” Chelsea House. Online Journalism. (Pp 40 – 71) Retrieved February 7, 2011 from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sooner/docDetail.action?docID=10284452