Reactions to Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation

It's funny to read a lot of this chapter because so much of it seems prehistoric. Of course, just like we mentioned in class, any book trying to deal with anything remotely digital quickly becomes at best outdated and at worst, obsolete.  The actual idea of this book talking about immediacy, hypermediacy, and remediation in print form is a bit ironic.  Perhaps someone has already remediated it.

On the other hand, it's interesting to look at what the book is saying and know that what its predicted has now happened, and has gone beyond what the authors could have predicted.  For example, Bolter and Grusin's discussion about immediacy being achieved with the manipulation of touching and dragging with a mouse or pen-based interface now seems taken for granted with our era of touch-screen phones, computers, TV's, and all else electronic, but the idea behind what they are saying remains the same: the more something feels real and as if the person is actually within that system, the more exciting it becomes.  It seems people are becoming less and less concerned with using technology for a tool and more concerned with actually becoming one with it.  I have girl friends who might actually consider their phones their best friends, for goodness sake.

I can back my point up with the idea of erasing the human agent which Bolter and Grusin discuss with automacy, where transparency is achieved and the human feels as if they are not merely watching a TV show or playing a video game, but are actually within that show or game, and moreover are part of it.  Being part of this imaginary world thrills, allowing people to go on adventures they never could in "real" life.  But who cares if it's real if it feels real anyways? It almost seems like the advent of becoming one with technology through transparency and immediacy is replacing something archaic... something nearly forgotten....what did they call those things? Oh yes, that's right -  Books.And the Imagination.

I will not deny that the immediate world we live it, which is ripe with remediation and hypermediacy and all that jazz, can be thrilling, awe-inspiring, and mystical.  But I am an English major.  And I think there is something to be said for the plain old piece of written literature - and for certain communication, imagination, and isolation problems that have come with the deterioration of this lost medium.