In the book The Power of Words, Puckner begins with the following sentence: "Sometimes, I imagine a world without words".
This imagination is very interesting. We know that since the advent of the Internet, people have been communicating more and more through audio and video, especially now, the 5G era is coming. If this continues, will words disappear?
I don't think it's completely impossible.
In 2004, a man named Philip? Mel, he publicly predicted: "By June 65438 +2044 10, the last reader will throw the last newspaper into the trash can after reading it."
What he means is that the printing civilization that printed words on paper died and withdrew from the historical stage. At that time, everyone thought he was talking nonsense, saying that newspapers, magazines and books were gone after 40 years? How is that possible? !
From 2004 to today, it has just passed 16 years. How much the situation has changed! Speaking of this topic again now, I estimate that half of people think that Professor Meyer's prediction is not too radical, but too conservative. Newspapers, magazines, books, these paper information have been completely eliminated, even without waiting for more than 20 years, at most, it will be 10 years.
Let's observe our children. They all receive and send information through the screen of their mobile phones. It is hard for us to imagine that after they get married, they will fall on the sofa after dinner at night, light a cigarette, make a cup of tea and pick up a copy of Beijing Evening News or a copy of Story Club.
Will e-books replace paper books?
Of course, you will say, I believe that newspapers and magazines have disappeared, but this does not mean that the paper media has disappeared. Aren't there books? Let's start with the first question: Will e-books completely replace paper books?
In my opinion, it is only a matter of time before e-books completely replace paper books. There is no doubt about it. 15 years ago, many people could not figure out why newspapers disappeared. The reason is actually very simple. To sum up, there are three things:
First, from the reader's point of view, the information in the newspaper is charged, while the news on the Internet is free. The logic of the network is to use news information to get eyeballs, eyeballs to watch advertisements, and then advertisers pay. The whole pattern is that the wool is on the dog;
Second, from the advertiser's point of view, there is no correlation between newspaper advertisements and news content, and the effect is uncertain. John Wernamek, the father of American department stores, famously said, "I know that half of my advertising expenses are wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half. " This one-liner is deeply rooted in people's hearts because it points out the pain point of newspaper advertisements-the effect cannot be quantified. The advertisements on the website are completely different. The website can charge advertisers by clicking, that is, the money is collected after the advertisement is clicked. Nowadays, it is more and more common for customers to pay me if they really pay for something. This is much better than the advertisement in the newspaper;
Thirdly, in terms of distribution channels, newspapers always have to form a huge team to deliver newspapers to subscribers' homes every morning. A newspaper always sells for 80 cents, so it is too expensive to hire someone to deliver it to every household. As a result, the newspaper publisher didn't make any money, and all the money went to the newspaper delivery person. However, in the Internet age, by publishing information online, huge channel expenses are saved.
With these three rules, paper newspapers and magazines will die out. The reason is that simple. So how do e-books compare with paper books? The reason is the same. Compared with paper books, e-books have three advantages:
First, it's cheap-the e-books sold on ——kindle are only half the price of paper books, and sometimes even cheaper. I visit bookstores now, and when I see good books, I always secretly take out the kindle to see if there is an electronic version. It's a bit unkind, but if it's on the kindle, I feel a little embarrassed to buy paper books.
Second, it is particularly convenient to extract and consult. Just copy and paste. How can paper books be so convenient? You can only cross the road when you see the main content. Cross the road and forget it the next day. It will be very troublesome to find this content in paper books in the future. But searching in e-books is very convenient;
Third, the passage fee is very cheap. For newspapers, magazines and books with low unit price, how to deliver things to customers cheaply is the most important problem. Paper books can't reduce this cost, because it needs bookstores. Bookstores can't live without coffee shops now. How long do you think paper books will last?
Some people say I can't read e-books I can only read paper books. I like its weight and the rustling of pages left and right. I was the same at first, and it took me a long time to get used to the kindle. This phenomenon of reading only paper books and e-books is called "incarnation" and it is also a very interesting topic. But I advise you from personal experience: grit your teeth, turn to kindle and throw away paper books. There is a little pain in the process, but after this hurdle, it will definitely benefit for life.
Then you have to say it. Well, it's up to you. I agree that newspapers and magazines are dead, and e-books will completely replace paper books in a while. But what you said is that the printing has disappeared and the words are still there!
After the text enters the network,
Let's talk about the second question first: what will happen when the text is moved online.
More than a decade ago, it was generally believed that portal news websites would replace newspapers. But when the portal really replaced the newspaper, the news portal itself died. We have previously introduced what McLuhan called "media is information". Even if an old content is moved to a new carrier, the content itself is bound to be unstable. Old wine can't be put in new bottles. If the carrier changes, the content will definitely change.
Take books as an example.
Mcluhan talked about a "rearview mirror principle", which means that we must "look back" at the disadvantages of the old media in order to understand the benefits of the new media. For example, after the mobile phone has the short message function, you can only understand the disadvantages of pagers by looking back.
Similarly, we also need to stand here on the Internet and go back to read a book, so as to understand what is wrong with the book. What's the problem? It is a way to organize books and other information, which is completely incompatible with the Internet.
After a book is put on the Internet, there will be three changes.
First, the content structure has changed.
Let's imagine a graduate student studying political science. His graduation thesis is entitled "The Origin of Moral Concepts". So when he writes a thesis, the first thing he has to do is to look for information and see what the big cows at all times and all over the world have said on the topic of "morality".
If this graduate student is put aside, he can only read the books of Rousseau, Schopenhauer and Hume page by page, looking for something related to "morality". But after all these books are moved online, graduate students will be relaxed. Instead of reading every page, he used "morality" as the subject word to search in the book. Thus improving the efficiency.
Efficiency has improved. Is this a good thing? It's not all good
We can imagine the Internet as a book eater, eating one book at a time. Because this monster has the ability to search, it is bound to reorganize and rearrange the contents of the book. In this process, the efficiency of information collation has been greatly improved, but at the cost, the greatest value of books-the structure of knowledge-has been completely destroyed.
That is to say, this graduate student who reads books on the Internet, compared with the graduate students who used to read paper books page by page, knows what many former philosophers said about morality, but he doesn't know the process of their argument. His logical reasoning ability is much lower than that of his predecessors who read paper books before. This is the first change.
Second, the stability of the content is also lost.
In the printing press era, the content was very stable. However, turning paper books into e-books and putting them on the Internet has lost its stability in the process of communication, and the definition of the identity of authors and readers has become increasingly blurred.
We go to Netease, mainly watching comments, not watching news. Readers' participation in text creation and even usurping the role of host is a phenomenon that did not exist in the printing era; When we read e-books online, we will also see other people's comments and notes on this book. Sometimes, other people's comments and notes can inspire you even more than the main content.
Nowadays, young people watch TV dramas on their mobile phones instead of watching TV, because they can watch and send out barrage. These are all good examples of reader participation. Then once the reader gets involved, the stability of the text will be lost.
Third, the style of the content has also changed.
Why did you subscribe to my program? It's just that it's difficult to read by myself, so I feel relaxed when I tell you a book! We humans, like other animals, mainly rely on our eyes and ears to get information. Harold kiness, a well-known Canadian scholar in economics and communication, believes that when human beings perceive the world, only the balance of hearing and vision can make them feel comfortable.
So when it comes to balance, it is half for listening and half for watching. But the half time you look with your eyes, is it words? I don't think it's real words. You are looking at the image. Right?
Therefore, if we believe that McLuhan's "media is information" is right, then whether news is moved online or books are moved online, the original content will undergo profound changes, which is what we said earlier: the structure has changed, the stability has lost, and the style has changed.
Sooner or later, the 500-year civilization achievements of printing will be all converted into audio and video by countless Gu Heng. On that day, words will become dispensable.
After the internet, the weight of words in information has become lower and lower. No one can reverse this trend.
Words don't exist from the beginning, and they won't exist forever. One day, words will disappear. Or, just like calligraphy, knowing a few words is just an irrelevant hobby.
Well, the content of this issue is that I think the Internet will eventually lead to the disappearance of words. This is just my personal guess about McLuhan's "media is information". Puckner's The Power of Words doesn't say that.
But reading through the book, Puckner will certainly agree with McLuhan's view that the use of words as a medium has profoundly influenced and even recreated our human species. Our thinking has become too complicated and alienated by our own ideas. We are the smartest species in nature, and we are also the most trouble-seeking species. This is the power of words.
Please forgive my introduction to this book, but I'm a little far from it. It's more about my personal feelings, book reviews, not book introductions. I use this angle because I want to take this book as an example to review the theory we learned from Pozmann earlier.
To tell the truth from this angle, I'm a little sorry about Puckner's book, because I read it as a reference book. So I strongly suggest you see for yourself. In fact, it's a great book.