A Case for Books
The disappearing internet and a prediction about reading
There’s no taking back what you’ve put online. Everything exists forever.
Right?
This is the story I’ve been told my whole life. But I’d like to challenge the notion, and I’d like to do something fun: make a prediction.
I’m predicting a revival of books in the next decade. I’ll define what I mean as we go.
As I type, I’m sitting in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Actually, Bodleian is a group of 26 libraries housing over 13 million printed items including rare manuscripts and artifacts. I’m in the Radcliffe Camera, literally surrounded by books.
But this isn’t some romantic prediction inspired by my current scenery. It’s a formulation I’ve been kicking around for some time. And it has much to do with recent movements of the internet.
Who’s to say things last forever?
Several weeks ago, Google announced their updated policy for deleting inactive accounts. According to the new policy, user accounts which have not been engaged for two years or more will be deleted along with their contents, including Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, and more. The company cites (valid) security concerns related to unkept accounts; forgotten accounts are more likely to reuse old, compromised passwords, and they’re less likely to utilize more recent security protocols like two-factor authentication. The accounts are therefore easy to hijack and use for purposes such as fraud and identity theft, putting you and your other accounts at risk too.
Twitter has floated similar plans, instructing users to log in every thirty days to keep their accounts active.
Mostly, forgotten accounts are just that: forgotten. You were inspired to start that small business, so you registered a new email, but things never really got off the ground. You used the same compromised password from that other account you made to get photos printed at the pharmacy once. In this case, Google is making the right call—clearing out clutter that’s only a liability to users. (Ostensibly, the move also cuts their own costs.)
The implications get more interesting, though, on the edges. Consider the list of deceased individuals, authors, and leaders whose “inactive” Twitter accounts serve as the only enduring archive of their living work. In these cases, the deletion of accounts can be devastating. Some platforms have introduced “legacy” functionality in attempt to address this specific concern, but its benefit is limited. Users must opt-in, and seeing as it is a recent development, it’s no retroactive fix for those who have already passed.
Think also about YouTube, owned by Google’s parent company. Initially, Google’s updated policy included the deletion of YouTube videos posted by now-inactive accounts. Again, that means that if the creator of an old gem goes inactive or loses a password, we collectively lose their work forever.
Already, when I take an occasional search down memory lane, I can’t find the old favorite videos I grew up on. In some cases, I’ve forgotten what to search. In others, I know exactly where to look, but they’ve disappeared.
Think about every YouTube video you’ve seen. What percentage of their creators do you expect to remain active?
Imagine if in local libraries, books evaporated from the shelf if the writer took a two-year hiatus. It would be a Library-of-Alexandria-level event every day. The Bodleian would cease to exist.
Regular people upload YouTube videos. Even “professional” creators move on to other things. We don’t expect all trace of them to disappear.
Indeed, only two days after their announcement, Google was forced to amend their policy. Amidst pushback, they added a carve-out so that YouTube videos will not be wiped.
These matters are tricky. Generally, I support cleaning up expired accounts. YouTube is different; I’m glad they changed course. But it casts a shadow on our idea of the web as some forever archive.
Stuff disappears from the internet all the time. It’s no law of nature keeping your favorite content online; it’s a boardroom made up of guys and gals. They have ideas and opinions like you, and ultimately they’re driven by financial interests.
“Nothing disappears from the internet” is more like a nursery rhyme. It’s a principle about your digital footprint: don’t send anything that you wouldn’t want seen in the future.
On the sending side, that’s true. Someone probably has a screenshot of that mean snap you sent in eighth grade.
But on the searcher’s side of the relationship, it’s wildly false. Things disappear. Someone might have saved that old artifact, yes, but that doesn’t mean you know where to find it.
My parents have old notebooks from school that are falling apart; I’ve never seen them pick one up and thumb through it. We have photo albums we rarely touch. I know these items aren’t all that practical. But the idea that Generations Z and Alpha could arrive at adulthood with no physical symbols of their lives is depressing.
Take Facebook. The only reason I kept my account is for the photos I was tagged in back in 2010. But as time goes on, friends delete their accounts or get hacked (Google’s exact concern). Today, there are fewer photos of me in cardigans than ever.
I would have been better off printing an album.
Now, since returning to school, I’ve learned. I download and organize all my readings and files—and I’m really not that guy. I just want something to show for my education when I reference back in ten years.
But let’s pause here. So far, this has little to do with books. I’m belaboring a point, and it’s this: things still die online.
The capital “I” Internet isn’t going anywhere. But we’ve lived online long enough to see apps come and go. Trends rise and fall. Files save and disappear.
The story we’ve established—that everything online will be accessible forever—is simply false. The more time goes on, the clearer the web’s limits become.
And who will grasp these limitations better than digital natives?
Ask Gen Z: they don’t love the internet. They use it, yes. Even for hours. But they wear no rose-colored glasses about the impacts of phones on their health. Already, the average person is scrolling the same (or more), but posting and engaging less. It’s mindless consumption. We’re like addicts sick of our habit—who haven’t yet put a line in the sand.
To me, these conditions sound perfect for a renaissance. For something new (or old) to emerge.
Books. Reading is an enriching form of entertainment. It builds your empathy. And your intelligence. It relieves stress. And they put you in touch with wide historical perspectives, rather than a sugar-high of trends.
You feel better after two hours with a book—compared to two hours on your phone.
Already, we’re near a junction. Book sales increased in 2020, and the average person reported reading more. Though lockdowns ended, book sales are still increasing.
However, polling also suggests we’ve reverted back to reading fewer books. Again, it’s like the addict. We want to read (book sales), but we haven’t got the willpower (books completed).
We’re due for a mindset shift.
I’ve laid out the basis for growing internet-weariness. As the internet matures (and technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality develop), I believe we’ll be drawn to books as a countervailing force.
It won’t be one or the other. Screen time will become more immersive, yet we’ll retreat to paper stories. We won’t just buy more books; we’ll find will to pick them up again.
I think three factors could precipitate the change:
1. Censorship
I’m no partisan here. If “censorship” is too politically-coded, let’s substitute the word “control.” Humans hate to feel that they’re being controlled.
Stop the steal. COVID. January 6th (the capitol riots, not my birthday). In the last three years, platforms introduced policies about how these events and others can be discussed online. And in the last few months, those rules have shifted. Like their policy on inactive accounts, Google released loosened standards for election-related claims.
Without adjudicating the details, my point is this: it’s been a lot of change for three years.
Just like corporations can change policies erasing old content, they change rules and regulate new content. One platform allows this, another platform allows that. Things you couldn’t say then can be said now.
I’m not some anti-tech crusader, and I don’t claim to know how companies should operate in every complex circumstance. I’m not even talking about censorship in the Orwellian sense. What I am pointing at is a feeling of consumer exhaustion. Put on your normie glasses, and let’s ask: Who reads every memo at work? What student doesn’t hate the hall monitor?
Twitter takes a different approach than Google, with users moderating each other in a feature called Community Notes. Return to a hot tweet five times, and you may find five different iterations of notes. People really need to know you’re smart enough to interpret that meme.
Again, imagine this in a library. Yes, books are reissued with minor edits and footnotes. But imagine reading a book that’s amended every hour?
Grab your old copy of The Scarlet Letter or To Kill A Mockingbird, and it’s the same. It’s exactly where you left it, exactly how you found it. Books are time capsules. They don’t change.
People don’t like to feel controlled. If the internet is a place where the ground constantly shifts, we’ll enter in shorter bursts. That’s human nature.
2. AI
Artificial Intelligence is prodigious in its ability to produce content. There’s already an incredible mass of content produced with the help of AI—YouTube channels with millions of views that AI scripted, narrated, and even edited.
Don’t get me wrong—creative people can use AI tools to aid with interesting projects. What’s more prevalent, though, is a sea of mediocre content. Even worse than mediocre content, Artificial Intelligence likely means a flood of nonstop bots, scams, and spam.
What does this mean? Again, it means exhaustion.
The internet is not going anywhere. Social media is not going anywhere. But it seems possible that the casual internet experience could become a hassle not worth entertaining.
We already know the internet can be unenjoyable. Once it becomes inconvenient, books become a decent proposition.
3. Black Swan
This is the least certain of my predictions, but an unlikely event could impair our internet access or our reliance on it.
Power grids can go down. Wars happen. One major risk of China invading Taiwan is that we lose our microchip supply—the little pieces running all our devices.
Look, I’m not predicting gloom. But stranger things have happened.
I think censorship and AI will slowly wean us from our internet compulsions. But a black swan event could metastasize the trend.
In other words, we pick up our phones because nothing’s stopping us. What happens if something does stop us?
If you think I’m crazy, consider vinyl record sales. No one needs vinyl with unlimited music online. Yet it’s experienced a decade-long resurgence in the public’s eye. Buying, collecting, and listening to records is a tactile ritual.
A second consideration? ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is starting a publishing division. Channeling BookTok into book sales—need we say more?
Perhaps my prediction is asinine. If so, at least we’ve had fun.
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. I am, after all, trying to make a living by writing.
Before entering the Bodleian, however, I was forced to make a pledge: not to remove a book, and not to burn a lamp (yes, really). Bodleian is a project in knowledge preservation, but it’s keenly aware of its threats. The internet is a similar project, but we’re only now becoming acquainted with some of its patterns and limitations.
As we mature with it, it’s my hope that we’ll recognize our own.
What do you think? Can books come back?
The prediction is a long shot, but I had fun making the case. Let me know what you think I missed.
IMO, this is one of your best yet—best writing, most compelling connections made, most provoking thoughts. I'm very proud.
I sure hope so!