Toe in the Water

Printers

Printers

I was wondering about a subject for today’s blog post when Andrea started to print something. My immediate thought was, “Do people still use printers?”

And there was the subject for today.

I haven’t used a printer in ages. But there was a time when I was the printer whisperer. Do you remember how they would refuse to do our bidding and only relent if you knew the right words to speak to them and how to recite the necessary incantations? I was good at that and I don’t think there was ever a printer that I didn’t manage to cajole into doing its job.

There was a lot for a printer to do back then. It seemed that we were always printing stuff so that we could… What? What happened to all those pieces of paper we printed off so urgently?

I believe most of them were stored somewhere, never to see the light of day again. Which leads to my theory for the day.

I maintain that we were in a transitional stage between the age of paper and the age of the computer. The idea of the ‘puter had always been that we wouldn’t have to have all that paper anymore - everything would be stored on the computer’s memory. But old habits are hard to break and, in those glorious, heady, and early days of computer use, we gave in to the need for some tangible thing to hang on to, the paper evidence of our work.

And now we’ve learned to trust the machine, especially since the advent of the cloud. We have transferred our affections from paper to the intangible and digital storage of our efforts within the ‘puter.

So I ask, “Does anyone use a printer these days?”

The answer is that some do, and I shouldn’t ask the question in the midst of writers, most of whom spend hours of their life printing out their novels and poems and suchlike, in the hope of persuading others into publishing the things. But what of everyone else? I suppose some few printers still toil away in offices that haven’t received the (digital) memo yet, but most people will have abandoned the printer in their personal lives.

My talent in the use of printers is out of date now and I no longer know all the latest models and which printer manufacturer makes the best ones. Indeed, should I be ashamed to admit that I no longer own a printer? I get a slight feeling of guilt at the thought that I never feel the need to print anymore.

How the mighty are fallen.

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