Real life is sensuous and aromatic—immersive as no written words, on paper or on screen, can ever be.
Socrates criticized writing, but it became a kind of seventh sense.
True, it’s a poor replacement for the rigor of remembering, but it is also a powerful transporter of ideas. And it’s a mirror that reaches into our brains, creating a new kind of conversation with ourselves.
How much of this can be said for new media?
Life online can never replace the pungent prickliness of the physical world, but the written conversation that transformed humanity has now exploded to become a global one. We are making the change that is happening, and have no way to predict where it will take us.
I’m optimistic.
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