How Important Are/Were Books?

There are three kinds of new books about the Internet. The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic. The Better-Nevers think that we would have been better off if the whole thing had never happened…and that books and magazines create private space for minds in ways that twenty-second bursts of information don’t. The Ever-Wasers insist that at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to others.