This is a paper I wrote for a Communications Class I'm taking right now, but I felt it's important and explores a part of our history that people might not know... Please be kind, as I've never considered myself an academic-type, so I don't use 10-dollar words and phrases.
Electronic and Digital Media: The Advent of the Instant-Gratification Era
Michael J. Stanek
The Advent of the Instant-Gratification Era
Media and American culture go hand-in-hand as far back as anyone cares to trace it. From the documents the lead to the fissures between our former motherland, England, to the newly invented electronic-book readers on which we can download those early documents and become better acquainted with our history—media has been of central importance to our existence as a country, and a leader in the Free World. Along the way, however, we have been gaining access at the expense of losing our patience and maybe even more.
Yet, let us not take away from the amazing advances we have made as a country. Examining the earlier documents (which obviously were print media due to the fact that electronic and digital media were not yet in existence yet) which lead to the foundation of America as a free nation, we must first take a look at the Stamp Act, which was an edict put into play by British Parliament and then-King of England George III, which required that all forms of media used by the American Colonists (such as newspapers, almanacs, and any books or print-media for the purpose of personal amusement) had to be stamped by the Kingdom of England (which was just a way of taxing the colonies). As a result of this draconian imposition on the Colonial American culture (since the Colonials were in every way as embroiled in media as Present-Day Americans are), American revolutionaries determined that taxation without representation violated a long-standing English law. To make a long story short, this began a huge conflict, then resulting in the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation, followed by the war against the English homeland known as the American Revolution, followed by one last major document known as the Constitution.
But one can clearly see, if media had not been of central importance to Colonial Americans, there might not have even been a war. Looking at the development of our culture throughout history, America, we have historically stove for perfection, but made due with what we had along the way. For example, the song “Over the River and Through the Woods” chronicles an American family’s trek to their grandfather’s house (yes, it was changed to “grandmother’s house” much later) for Thanksgiving dinner (although it is sometimes presented as a Christmas story, as well). The reason this is important is because while the trek was probably cold, long, and miserable considering it was snowy and they were being carried on a horse-drawn sleigh a very long distance, the people made the most of their long, cold trip by focusing on the positives and the reward at the end.
Today, if we had to go to our grandmother or grandfather’s house for a family meeting or a seasonal gathering, we had better have our cellular telephones with digital technology, our laptops with a mobile-connect card, or at very least some portable form of entertainment, like a portable DVD player, an iPod, or a Sony PSP. In that respect, as a culture, we have become a culture who is offended if we have to be patient for things. We no longer have the time to find a land-line phone to make a phone call. We all must have a cellular telephone. We no longer want to watch the TV Guide channel or read a print-media TV guide. We want to press a button on our digital cable or satellite TV and see what’s on television on any given channel.
This instant-gratification mentality can be seen everywhere. “Digitised books, letters, photographs, pamphlets, documents—objects that in print form could be touched and handled—[have lost] their physicality…” (Arthur, 2008) While we used to wait for our newspapers to be delivered to our doorsteps, now, we log onto our computers with blazing-fast Broadband, DSL, or Mobile connections in order to get our news at our fingertips, without having to get ink on our fingers, or having to throw away a bundle of newspapers and having them be in a landfill for the rest of their existence. While we used to wait for stores like Walgreens or Wal*Mart to process our photographs, or while we used to use chemicals in our dark-rooms to develop our own photos, now we just upload a digital card into our computer and print them on our home printers, or upload them in seconds to our social networking websites. While we used to use magnetic recording tape to hear or see our favorite songs or recordings, we can now use 100% digital format such as MP3 or over-the-air satellite (even though we can still buy VHS or cassette tapes at extremely discounted prices) and not have to worry about recording tape breaking or getting tangled as we are so familiar with.
However, with the advent of our Age of Instant Gratification, our patience dwindles. Ourwillingness to do extra grunt-work when necessary is somewhat removed. We might be more ready to skimp on details rather than go to a physical library to find a book that might not be available on an electronic library. As a result, our final products as students or business people might be somewhat lacking, and consequently less convincing or valuable. Further, “According to a national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education [DOE], English literacy among college graduates has declined dramatically in the past 10 years [since 1996]. Only 31 percent of college graduates today are proficient in English literacy, compared with 40 percent just a decade ago.” (Rifkin, 2006.) With this in mind, it is worth considering the fact that while we are becoming a more digitally, electronically, and technologically society, at the same time, something is lost. Whether it be patience, motivation to go the extra mile, or something more serious like literacy; as we progress and advance in some areas, we erode and begin to crumble in others.
References
Arthur, P. (2008). Digital Fabric, Narrative Threads: Patchwork Designs
on History. Interdisciplinary Humanities, 25(2), 106-120.
Rifkin, J. (2006, October 11). Electronic Interaction is Making
Americans Less Literate. Retrieved December 17, 2009 from
International Herald Tribune Online, Web site: http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?contentSet=GSRC&docType=GSRC&tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010474211&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&type=retrieve&version=1.0