nicholas carr does it matter pdf creator

Yet, in reporting on these changes, reporters turned to electronic editions of the books - first, the 2010 Kindle edition, then a version posted by a political adversary on Scribd. The difference between a first-edition hardcover of “Rabbit Redux” and the fourth edition paperback could be significant in the ways Carr is considering - text reflowing, new text introduced, things fixed, things changed.Ĭurrently, there’s a controversy about Mitt Romney’s book and the revision of it prior to his presidential run.

In at least one case, he completely shifted the focus of major narrative events. Between the hardcover and paperback, typos were fixed, and pages reflowed for the new trim size. But have books really been that fixed? Even Updike himself would revise stories from magazines as they moved into his books, changing a sentence here or there after the serialization of a few chapters. To achieve his tone of concern, Carr turns to John Updike, who celebrated the “edges” of books, something Carr interprets as indelibility or permanence.

instruction manuals with current information.

ease in correcting errors or updating references.

reference and guide books that never go out of date.

But, showman that he is, he seems to want to land on the scariest note he can, an A-flat of doom, despite his knowledgeable and informed summation of the benefits fluidity might provide, including:

It’s actually quite an interesting read, because Carr gives a balanced assessment of the pros and cons of fixity vs. As electronic books push paper ones aside, movable type seems fated to be replaced by movable text. There’s no technological constraint on perpetual editing, and the cost of altering digital text is basically zero. A book page turns into something like a Web page, able to be revised endlessly after its initial uploading. It can change every time it’s refreshed on a screen. Once digitized, a page of words loses its fixity. Here’s a quote from Carr’s recent Wall Street Journal article which efficiently captures his concern about a loss of fixity: Second, I will invoke Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride in saying that “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

We’ve been dealing with this for a long time, from learning new citation schemes for Web sites to learning how to cite the Kindle. Was he trying to modify himself? Perhaps in this modified state, he’s latched on to the lack of “fixity” in digital text.įirst, Mr. His “the Internet rewires your brain” string of hits never really seemed plausible, especially coming from a fellow blogger and heavy Internet user. He often arrives at dramatic statements I can’t quite stomach, ones that actually get worse the more I think about them.

Nicholas carr does it matter pdf creator