It had been long since books had occupied any major spot in people’s lives. Since the TV set reached homes all over the world, books and reading in general, took a step back to the hypnotic module sitting in front of people. But oh behold! For the first time since the invention of TV, Nielsen has registered a drop in numbers of TV sets.
But it’s not that people just got bored with flatter, thinner screens with HD and Blue Ray and exchanged them for a pile of paper bound together. After all, books were losing the battle because they themselves represented no innovation against flat screens. Words like “bookworms” were not to be meant for a good connotation.
Then, something else happened. Popculture turned a 180 and suddenly being geek is the bomb (good for all of us then). What made books and geeks become the new hit wonder? Simple: Technology. “If you can’t beat them, join them” boy! is that phrase right.
So TV’s keep coming up with higher resolutions and less space? Why not turn the dusty old sheets into touch screens? And the only people smart enough to handle those little gadgets are geeks themselves? Not looking so tough now, eh? Books became E-books and now almost half the books sold in the world are digital books.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKEaypYJbb4]
Which brings me to my next question. Sort of what was first? the chicken or the egg? Marketing campaigns lately have also tried to encourage reading lately (at least as far as Mexico is concerned). So was it because of marketing campaigns that readerships is higher than viewership or was it that marketers just saw the trend and decided to ride along with it?
Which ever one it was, the point is that “this too shall pass” is the perfect epitaph on TV sets’ graves in a near future.