the death of print

i had a fantastic conversation last night. two were MBA students, one was a physics professor, another was a statistics professor, and me. the statistics and physics professors are married, and nick and i were at their house for dinner. surrounded by so many great books, i asked them who liked to read those books. the physics professor said those books were hers, but she said that she reads much less these days. one of the MBA students said he used to read voraciously but now said he doesn't read much. you know, people say that a lot. that they don't read much. but they DO! and from our readings, people are reading in such different ways these days. he says he emails, he games, and he surfs the internet. all very legitimate ways of accessing literacy, i say. but the statistics professor disagrees. he says we're taking the definition of literacy too far. the physics professor agrees somewhat. she thinks books will soon become a hybrid of digital technology in the form of print. she fantasizes about a time when she'll order a book online, go to the nearest ATM to print it out, and have a hard copy in her hand. but when she's 90 or so, she'll probably be transitioning to all digitized text and she'll pull out a foldable computer screen from her pocket to read her 'book'. but, she'll still keep printed books as art around the house.
so she imagines these fantasies because she's a bookophile. one day when students have to go to a museum to see what a book is, a day when their teachers will say, "kids, these are what WE had to read out of," they will wonder how people ever read text that way and can't imagine reading books in any other way but through some digitized medium.