Paper or Plastic?

When 9/11 happened the first thing that struck me, after the fact of all the death got through my incredulous numbness, was the fluttering paper that wafted down from the sky.

What were they, I wondered: financial records, letters, receipts...what exactly?

Of course they were all those and more. And though I'd been hearing about the paper office for quite some time, what I was seeing was a lot of paper from a lot of offices. Somehow it made the whole scene harder to take, because even though much data was lost electonically, the paper had a more human connection for me -- I am not a child of the computer age -- and that flying paper made me think of the human loss.

Books, letters, magazines are human to me; a floppy disk is not. But that's probably a generational thing. I imagine Gen Xers become sentimental when they see one of those original large floppy disks.

On the other hand, when a piece of my writing appears online, I feel it is more important than if it had appeared in print. I know that no one is ever going to be able to wrap fish guts in it, and in all likelihood more people will be exposed to it than had it been hiding in the folds of paper pages.

What do you think are the major differneces between print and online exposure? Which do you prefer and why? Will one dominate over the other or will they co-exist in harmony?  ¶ 1:04 AM