I wonder how many trees died to circulate thousands of copies of this newspaper today. I imagine some tropical rainforest was bulldozed on the perimeter of the Amazon, as endangered rodents fled from their flattened habitat.

I’ll cut the drama, but still beg the question. Forgive me, but wasn’t the Internet supposed to make the world paperless? Aren’t we supposed to be in some electronic utopia right now?

I still go to class and take notes by hand with some bizarre plastic instrument that dispenses graphite in a 99 cent composition book, as my professor expertly presses a button that flips slides illuminated on the wall, as I proceed to transcribe everything on a modern incarnation of papyrus. My point? We can glamorize it all we want, but paper hasn’t changed much and remains entrenched in the way we do things – even amidst this new computer fad that’s managed to infiltrate a quaint place like Alabama! What gives?

First, let’s talk about “e-books.” Last year, UK’s The Guardian proclaimed that “Kindle eBook sales have overtaken Amazon print sales” and hot damn, we should have called the technology police then and there!

We’ll never see a real book again or inhale that rustic smell of paper when walking into a bookstore. Stay calm – you’ll still have your moleskin notebook, and I assure you, paper books will stay for some time. E-books are a linear medium and while they are good for reading a sequence of text (like fiction), we can’t quite feel the geography of ideas like we can on physical paper. It’s why electronic textbooks are a pain and you wouldn’t find me highlighting a Kindle. At least this is what we tell ourselves.

But I’ll go ahead and admit it: I thought newspapers would be dead by now. I thought the spirit animal of Benjamin Franklin would be born again in the 21st century and invent a digital word press that would lift us out of our obsession with paper. At the end of the day, some thousands of newspapers will end up in the trash – news that could have easily been delivered over the internet, into our hands in seconds. The technology to go paperless is there, but reading and writing with a glowing screen doesn’t “feel” right.

Over the years, our mentality has adjusted to paper. We like the feel of it in our hands. We like the freedom it affords when taking notes. We remember things better when we write them down on something physical. It’s all an elaborate psychological construct. We’re that awkward generation between paper and paperless. We don’t know which way to go.

Tarif Haque is a sophomore majoring in computer science. His column runs biweekly on Thursdays.

Leading in today’s Crimson White:

Many vegetarian options available in Tuscaloosa area

Kappa Delta to host 4th annual Shamrock Run

[Opinion] The Voting Rights Act still necessary in Shelby County