Response to Carr

I found this article very intriguing. I believe that this very issue will become more prevalent in the next 3-5 years as society moves from an physically-dominated world into a digital world. Carr told his story of how easy it was for him to manipulate a digital text that he had written. I believe that he is completely correct when he says having digital text presents many dangers as well as some advantages. The danger is that anyone with the source file to these texts can manipulate them.  So teachers that don’t agree with certain things in a text book can change the actual text to fit their bias; Politicians can alter articles to change the way the public views them, and the list goes on. I have a personal experience that involved the digitization of text. I needed to buy my book for the summer reading assigned before we first arrived on Centre’s campus, so I was debating on the digital iBook version, or the physical book. I ended up going with the digital version. I quickly noticed there were some advantages to digital texts. First, the price – the digital version was far cheaper than any physical book I was able to find. Second, availability – the digital version was available at any time, any location, and on any computing device that I owned. Third, speed – my digital version downloaded in a matter of a couple of minutes. If I were to have gone with the physical version, I would either have had to wait days for it to arrive in the mail, or gone to a bookstore and spent my time looking for it there. I was, however, hesitant to purchase the iBook for the very reason that Carr is concerned with digital text. I was not sure if the digital book was the author’s true work. What society is going to have to figure out is if sacrificing security for speed, price, and availability is worth it. I personally haven’t decided. I like saving money and the speed of digital text, but there is something to be said for knowing that the book you are holding is the author’s true work. Some might argue that even printed texts could be corrupted by the printing company, or publisher, or by some other means along the way. So some might say that printed texts cannot be completely trusted as the author's true work either. My point is that it is far more trustworthy than a digital text that can be manipulated on the fly. There’s also something nostalgic about having the physical text in my hands that I like. One thing that might sway me more toward liking digital text is if there was some way to restrict the source file from being manipulated. That way, the first version submitted is the only version that would be seen – nothing could be changed about it.