Which do you like? Paper or Computer ? I am a middle of the road person on this question. Sometimes I love the computer and the various tech things it has brought into my life. Other situations I can cope with better on paper that I can hold in my hand. The idea of the computer holding a daily schedule and helping me plan my tasks---that appeals to me, but I just don't want to have to be connected to it in order to go about my day and feel I have accomplished something at the end of the working hours. I am still makes pencil and paper lists, I am still planning events in the hand written form.
In photography, I love being able to delete blurry pictures, the ones too dark, where someone has a pole growing out of their head. But I also don't have pictures to send or show unless I print them all out. I have a friend who positively hates the idea that all these pictures are floating around in some unidentifiable place she calls 'space.'
A monitor and a keyboard has simplified some of the trials of correcting mistakes made with a typewriter. Delete, simple! One can get half way through a writing and decide to move this paragraph to a different spot and insert thus ans such there with ease. Too much delete, Disaster! As long as the printer is working it is easy to have the paper copy one needs, but if not? And a constant need for ink cartridges, one more thing! Sending an attachment or an email, a piece of cake, and done so quickly. At the same time a dragging finger can cause problems. Unsaved documents vanish in an instant.
Paper piles up, paper takes up real space in your home or office. The computer helped reduce that problem we were told.. However, when you walk into the lawyer's office, or fill out an application online, etc., there comes a time when what is wanted is that hard copy, paper!
When I am researching genealogically I feel a special connection with a person long since passed away when I see their signature, handwritten. Or a will written by hand, a letter to a loved one. Some how I don't think I would feel that way if it was a font from the computer, printed out. I have a neighbor who feels the importance of writing to his grown children and their families each month. I too feel this is important and make an effort to do it. I use the computer, print it off before mailing through the snailmail. He is a businessman, fully able to do it in that fashion, but he writes his missives in longhand. His wife, on the other hand keeps in touch with their kids by email and texts.
For me, personally, I don't see this as a dilemma soon to be solved. I live much of my life feeling I have one foot lifting off the distant past, another teetering in the present. How about you?
