As ever

Planned Obsolescence, on responses to the recent NYT article on academic email “abuse”:

…[N]o one heavily invested in an older media institution can analyze the workings of a newer media form objectively. The anxiety of obsolescence that all media change breeds makes it impossible for such analysis to be carried out innocently, without an agenda driven by the desire to promote the virtues of the older form at the expense of the newer. Any argument in print about the ways that electronic communication is leading us all down the primrose path really needs to be taken with a grain of salt.