Speaking from the comfort of his parent's leather sofa, in a room illuminated by coal-generated electricity, and stopping often to stare at a small, hand-held electronic device, 19-year-old Samuell K. Vost said, just this past Monday, that books are totally worthless. “Look at this new smart-phone I got for my birthday last month,” he said, poking at the pocket computer that never seemed to leave his hand. “I can look up stuff on it, and I can get on the Internet and maybe chat with people I don't even know who live in, like, China and stuff. I don't, but I could, and anyway, I couldn't do any of this stuff with, like, a paper book.”
The book is a physical medium for storing and sharing information that was popular from the dawn of human civilization well into the beginning of the 21st century. Since the advent of man-portable external gadgets of high sophistication and tremendous computing power, large numbers of people – even entire generations – have stopped storing information in the man-portable internal computer of high sophistication and tremendous computing power known as the Brain, preferring rather to rely on devices that stop working when they get wet, when they are dropped, and when their batteries die. Said young master Vost over his shoulder while urinating standing up, “With my new phone, I can find anyone, see anything, watch any movie, and visit any place on Earth I want to, without leaving that fine suede couch you saw in the living-room.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he accidentally dropped the device in the toilet, destroying it. Desperate, he tried to order a new phone using the desktop computer in the workroom, but, just as he was about to complete the transaction, the electrical storm that had been raging outside hit a transformer box, knocking out all electrical power in the neighborhood and severing his connection to the World-Wide-Web. Alone, computer-less, and confronted with total darkness for the first time in a decade, Samuell stumbled around blindly, searching in vain for a flashlight. “I normally use my phone to light the way,” he said from a curled-up heap by the basement staircase. “I don't even think we have flashlights in the house, or in the garage. I wish my phone worked so I could call for help, or watch a tutorial video on how to use the breaker-box in the basement. I don't know anyone's telephone numbers, not even my parents'. Shit,” he said dejectedly, “I may be in trouble.”
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