The Borders bookstore in Saratoga Springs is closing. As stunned as I am, personally, that my own industry could fall into an unrecognizable electronic abyss in less than ten years, it seems unimaginable that books are following so quickly on its heals. And, lest you think I am somehow blind to the irony, yes, I am fully aware that I am depressing keys that trigger digital sequences to approximate text on a backlit screen to be later transmitted for others to download and read as if any of it were real.

The Digital Age has come on us like a massive and sudden volcanic eruption, not subtly like the snail’s pace movement of some glacier or other that brought on many of the studied ages in world history. The problem is that technological advances are moving much faster than humans can comfortably adapt, and for all of the wizardry at our fingertips, we are not better for the progress. Scanners and computerized cash registers have sped up the grocery line while eliminating any skill set, (except the occasional bagging), from the cashier. Music programs have trivialized musicianship by allowing misplayed notes to be instantly corrected, uncomfortable meter to be groovily quantized and poorly sung, out-of-tune vocals to be Madona or Cher-o-sized. E-readers, (the not so clandestine snipers responsible for the Borders assassination), will read aloud your downloaded book so that you can text, snack and surf, (multi-tasking?), simultaneously. Research is now called Google or Bing and is instantaneous if not verifiable. Our brain function has begun to atrophy by disuse of problem solving and memorizing. Is it any wonder that the collapse of everything around us, from market manipulations to governments are spurred on by the proliferation of digital media? It’s a gamer’s mentality that has reduced everything to jingles, sound bites and texting shorthand only with much more dire consequence than hitting ‘replay’ when things get out of hand.

Watson won on Jeopardy…duh, but only because most of the answers or questions, (the Jeopardy thing is always confusing), were merely factual. When logic or abstract thinking was involved, Watson was not quite so daunting an opponent. Maybe programmers will fill in these gaps, but at what cost? The more we depend on spell, grammar and style checkers, calculators, Photoshop© and AutoTune©, the more we give in to our mediocrity and the closer we come to surrendering to the machines. And the machines do not require basic human necessities like food and clothing, so when they are fully in charge, they won’t care about them for us either.

Did I mention that Borders is closing in Saratoga Springs?