DTC 375 Blog Post 5

Baron CH 1, 3, &5

The first chapter of A Better Pencil talks about writing as a technology and it’s integration into society. One interesting idea that Baron was describing was the fact that text and writing in general must have been highly questioned when it was first brought about. Just like the wheel must have been, much like computers were until quite recently, all new invention have some hesitancy in the general public. However now we need writing as an essential part of our everyday lives. As seen in Baron’s example soda cans and dollar bill have writing of letters and numbers on them. They even bring us comfort and if they were to go missing we would probably question the contents within.

“The digital word can be as important or as trivial, as effective or as meaningless, as the analog variety.” What Baron means by this is that no matter how much you try and “dress up” some words with a new tech, after all the dust settles these words will either be great on their own, or they won’t.

Baron continues to make interesting notes on the hesitancy of advancing technologies. He write about how pencils were criticize when they first came to be because pens were the common usage. However pens were soon outdated by good pencils because of the writer not needed to stop to dip the pens into an ink well. They could simply continue their train of thought and pencils also allowed for the writer to erase mistakes.

This shows similarities to when calculators were feared to be allowed in classrooms for fear of making student lazy and not fully learning to add and subtract, now they are required for most classrooms and needed for standardized test such as the SAT and ACT.

One of the other criticisms that Baron discusses is “writers may pay less attention to what they are doing, and writing quality deteriorates.” This is in concern with the introduction of computers but it could be said that the same concerns were brought up when pencils were brought about. “Nostalgists frequently claim that the old ways were better because they were more natural.” But not all old ways are good ways and this book does a very good job of showing that though the different technologies that have been introduced and how they were received when integrated through society.