Stunting our humanity?

The digitization of our world has been in progress now for well over 30 years, but in the last five or so, it has accelerated exponentially!!

With the decline of department stores, video rental stores, bookstores and more, we are on a slippery slope to being completely devoid of almost ANY physical storefronts that aren't food oriented.

When it comes to manufactured products, it is getting more and more common and efficient to just order the items we want online. With the onset of all of the mobile devices we now use, we are almost constantly connected online, being bombarded with emails and online advertisements of items for sale at this site or that site.

The digitization of literature has been part of this trend as well. While I do like being able to simply download a novel to my iPad or whatever device I choose, I regret that it means the eventual demise of the physical bookstore. I love being able to walk into a bookstore and smell and feel the aged paper stacked on the shelves.

While there will always be a market for physical books among collectors, I feel that the storefront bookstore is slowly becoming extinct.

Now what does all of this mean for our beloved choice of medium, the comic book?

Well, we all know that the onset of digital comic providers has been on the upswing lately. Between Marvel, DC and other providers like XComics, you can easily download digital versions of both old and new releases at the touch of a digital button.

This is really neat, but what are we losing in this metamorphosis? Young people coming up in the world today are all about instant gratification and immediate acquisition and satisfaction. They want things to happen faster and faster and often can't even pull themselves away from a screen of some sort for even a moment to relate to the physical world.

We have become enamored with the digital universe we have created to the point where the real world (meatspace, as it is being referred to now) is becoming less and less prevalent.

For me personally, when I read a comic book or whatever, I am creating a temporary, physical world in my mind for the story to exist within. The visual nature of comics makes this easier, but by having the tactile, visual, smell-able comic in my hand while I experience it, the story seems to be more real to me physically.

To digitize the comic takes all of that away for the most part. Sure you get to read the story, but to me something is lost when you can no longer feel and smell the book in your hands. Maybe I'm just an old fogey, old-school thinker in this, but it's how I feel.

We seem to be trading physical tangibility for mental tangibility. Don't we ultimately lose out in the bargain? Don't we become lesser in some way with the trade off? Less human, somehow?

With money and technological progress being the driving force behind this digitization of our world, I think this will ultimately doom the physical comic book, and eventually only the die hard collectors like us will be the ones scrounging around in a digital world for those cherished physical items that we love so much.

Don't get me wrong here. I love the digital world as well. After all, without it, we wouldn't have our beloved online CGC registry to be able to share our collections and our thoughts on this hobby. But we need to be careful to have an acceptable balance between cyberspace and meatspace.

As an example, my two godsons are very much into comics, but also into technology. I am trying my best to instill a sense of desire for the tangible comics into them, but I fear that along with the rest of the world, they will lose the nostalgia associated with the real things. To me, this is very unfortunate for future generations.

Am I being too negative? Am I overblowing all of this? What do you all think?

Your thoughts, anyone?

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