I love to read. Always have. For me, learning how to read may be one of my most indelible memories. I’ll never forget begging my teacher to let me take my lesson book home to show my parents what I had learned. What I had unlocked. Because that’s how it felt, as though I had broken some kind of seal. One that allowed me access to all the stories in the world.

So, naturally, I am somewhat saddened by the impending demise of the book. The paper book, at least.

But, only somewhat.

I clearly see the advantages in going digital: reducing paper waste, clearing storage space, lowering production and distributions emissions, etc.

What troubles me more is the overall decline in readership that may result from our digital migration. Already, people’s tolerance for lengthy prose has been diminished. If it’s not written in bite size morsels or in video format, you are risking a severe reduction in your potential audience. The movie business is booming while bookstores go bankrupt.

So? Isn’t it up to the people to choose how to consume media and what form of entertainment they prefer? Certainly, by all means. My concern, my only concern, is that this is just another area in which we are losing our collective war against one of humanities greatest enemies: apathy.

Why cook a meal when you can order take-out?

Why climb stairs when you can take an escalator?

Why visit a friend when you can send a text?

Why read a book when you can watch a movie?

Why? Because it’s not the same. It’s not even close. The difference? The use of the imagination. A movie is a passive form of story observation, whereas a book is an active form of story immersion. It takes place in the mind. It requires the use of the imagination to bring the story to life. To see the characters, to sense the atmosphere, to visualize the landscape.

The imagination, just like any muscle, will atrophy if left unused. And we all know the results that occur if the body is malnourished and immobilized. We enter into a slovenly state: weak, slow, lethargic.

So, what could be the ramifications that result from a society that ceases to exercise the collective imagination? A greater focus on rational judgment, less on creative problem solving? An increased emphasis on linear logic with a decline in abstract thinking? The world could become a place where we focus solely on what we can touch, measure, and replicate, less on what we can sense, dream, and create.

Technology has great intentions and the incredible potential to simplify our lives and connect us more closely together. Unfortunately, we tend to abuse these new innovations.

The electronic workplace presents the opportunity to complete what used to be a week’s worth of work in a single day, which should free up more time to enjoy one’s personal life, doing the things that satisfy the soul. Yet, we do the opposite. We raise our expectations on output, working harder, longer hours, increasing already strenuous demands on ourselves and colleagues, elevating stress levels to new record highs.

Social media and mobile communications present the opportunity to reconnect and stay in touch, which they do. But instead of bringing people together in a real and genuine way, people tend to talk less in real time, and, instead, chat from vast distances through virtual channels.

And, so too with stories, technology seems to be moving us further away from that which sparks our own imagination, as we sit for two hour blocks with goggles on gazing at incredible displays of CGI. I mean this from a macro level. As far as a general direction is concerned. Creativity is still alive and tap-dancing on bookshelves and theater screens. I just hope that we don’t allow technology to close the curtains on the theater of the mind, causing our imaginations to wither.

We don’t need a moving sidewalk for the imagination, it requires room to roam.