Written Literature vs. Multimedia

Last week in class we discussed the pros and cons of multimedia having a larger role in classrooms and in the world. In 20 years will the next generation even be reading books (in the traditional sense) or will the concept of a bound book seem ludicrous to them? Will everyone have a Kindle or an iPad and never hold a newspaper or a book in their hands? We talked about this a little bit in my journalism class last year with regard to newspapers. Most newspapers in the past 20 years have seen significant decreases in their number of newspaper subscriptions as people have switched to the easier online versions of them. But, the question is, in this transition from print to multimedia what, if anything, is lost? If you were to read the newspaper every day online or every day in print would it really make a difference? As long as the content is the same it shouldn't. But, there is certainly something to be said for sitting down in the morning, flipping through the newspaper and passing the different sections around the kitchen table. Though I can't exactly pin down what is lost in the transition from print to electronic or print to books on tape, it seems to me that somehow in this switch, the life is drained out of the content. This may be because I have grown up with books and newspapers in my hands and have yet to come to terms with the Kindle or the iPad as replacements for my childhood memories. Maybe nothing is really lost at all as long as the content remains the same, but I am afraid that as generations to come rely more heavily on multimedia instead of print, some of the joy of reading will be sucked out of the world. For me I guess it comes down to tradition. I've always reveled in thoughts of reading the same book to my children that my mother read to me or passing the sections of the newspaper around the kitchen table in the morning with my family. I hope these feel-good traditions aren't wiped out as new cool technology takes their place.