Into The Electronic Millennium Summary

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The essay “Into the electronic millennium” is a cynical observation of an author named Sven Birkerts, towards the electronic era of 21st century. Author’s overall intent of the essay is to put forth an awareness with a pinch of bias on the electronic damage to the society. He makes many assertions to argue his points which are some what valid even today, some of them which capture quick attention are: “The electronic media are invisible in process, but omnipresent in product” (Birkerts), “the only way that we can understand what is happening- what has already happened- is by the way of serve and unnatural dissociation of sensibility” (Birkerts). With all these impressive protestations, author is trying to make his readers ponder about the topic, as he says, “ To get the grip on the dimensions of the change, you must force yourself to imagine -deeply and in non-televisual terms- what the world …show more content…

For example he exaggerates when he claims that, “The numbers of distance and time no longer mean what they used to mean” (Birkerts). This statement of his can also be taken in a very positive way because in today’s world there are no restrictions for anyone while traveling from one place to another in less time as it is a basic need nowadays. As transportation has become a very important part of our lives today and so his claim would be an understatement for the electronic world. When the author quotes Robert Calabrese’s argument, “They know no other way and we’re simply capitalizing on that to enhance learning” (Birkerts), he connects this example of his with the idea of “they know no other way” by claiming, “Calabrese’s observation on the preconditioning of the whole generation of students (they know no other way…”) opens a whole other can of educational worms. But with this claim he leaves the predictive positivity of electronic education

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