Today, both paper and pens are a ubiquitous and affordable resource. Pens may carry a cultural value when given as special gifts, yet others are discarded at the first sign of malfunction. Historians have tended to subsume the history of paper within printing and the mass production of books.
Rather than view changes in technology as progress, we hope to frame the reciprocal influences of this technology as “an agent of change without insisting that it works in isolation or in opposition to other aspects of culture”.
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Prior to the becoming the dominant writing material in the West, people of the early Middle Ages considered parchment to be superior. It was more durable.
In the later Middle Ages, when rag paper was introduced from the Far East, paper became the dominant medium because it could be produced locally and in greater amounts.
A new technology may turn out to become revolutionary, but it must exist and work within the existing world. Consider the reciprocal influences between paper and Gutenberg’s printing press. The paper and scribal inks used in quills were unsuitable for a press.
While we may marvel at the present digital world, education is still entrenched in the use of paper. Devices are making their way into the classroom but textbooks, worksheets, and three ring binders have yet to be significantly displaced.
