Osborne c. 1981

I was an early PC adopter – having traded in my trusty IBM Selectric for an Osborne ‘Portable’ computer in 1981. Once I’d – painfully – mastered the intricacies of WordStar, personal productivity – or was it prolixity? – increased substantially. And when – much later – digitized graphics became possible, I was in 7th heaven – what graphically orientated anatomist wouldn’t be?

But… In my dealings with students and younger members of the research community I began to note some worrying trends over next 20 or so years.

• With the massive increase in material available over the Web it became increasingly difficult to separate trash and treasure, and quite a number of the younger generation came not to appreciate the difference.
• Where I had originally held great expectations for digital media to make complex processes easier to understand (embryological development, for example) this often did not happen. Students were reluctant to spend the time required to digest and understand complex processes fully… even when spoon fed. ‘If I don’t get it on the first pass through, it cannot be terribly important.” Or “They just don’t know how to teach it properly.”
• In fact students became increasingly reluctant to read their texts and research papers at all. The Web offered too many diversions and distractions. This is of course both good and bad as anyone who as ‘wasted time’ roaming through the library stacks looking for random treasures will attest. The point here is that many thought all they would ever need could be found on the Web; and if it wasn’t there, well… actually going to the library can be a real pain in the arse.

Thus, whilst a certain breadth of coverage is to be found, depth often is not. And, the ability or desire to assess quality is much diminished. The real tragedy was the all too frequent response: “I don’t see what your problem is here.” The cloud has the potential to become a smothering pillow – too much data, no real way of getting rid of the dross.

This, of course, doesn’t even begin to go into the problems that arise from a serious non-reading habit. Spelling… What’s that? Grammar… You’re kidding, surely. Logical exposition… sentence structure… things that are really important should have flashing lights or jump up and down on the screen to grab your attention. Who cares whether the subject and predicate agree… or are even logically related. What’s a predicate anyhow?

And finally, has anyone else noticed that maximum paragraph length is now pretty much based on the number of text lines that fill your computer screen?

Thus, the grumblings of an old chap suffering from a real communications disconnect… Oops, I just pressed the wrong button on my mobile; need to get my grandson to fix it. Again!
By John R. Haight