That Science Fiction Movie is Now!

This is an recent, unposed picture of one of my 8th grade students. He's reading Dave Eggers' Zeitoun on a Kindle e-reader. Simultaneously, he's listening, through headphones, to the audio book of Zeitoun being read on his laptop. Simultaneously he's listening to Radiohead playing softly in the background. And simultaneously, he's using antique paper books to prop up his pencil case. I could be freaked out, as his oldie teacher, but times, they are a changing. And it's not all bad. The kids are locked in, they are reading, they are absorbing and understanding on quite a deep level. The delivery method has changed, that's all. Beyond nostalgia, which I suffer from greatly, the paper book (as well as paper newspapers, magazines, catalogues) don't make any sense in our modern age. They're wasteful of paper, gas, and energy, and they fall apart, especially in a classroom setting. The reading of the novel is still the same experience, just a different package. But then again, a paper book is a piece of art, a visual memory on a bookshelf, a reason for book stores to soothe the souls of browsers. No matter what happens to paper books, stories will always survive. They are what make us human.