Abstract

During the Renaissance, the printed book became a personal object, a surrogate or personification of the self. The iPod has assumed the same role in the digital age that the printed book played in the analog world. This paper explores the roles of the book in the formation of “the early modern self,” and the iPod as equivalent in the post-modern era. The aspects of community vs. individuality and the parallels between the fostering of community and the isolation of the self that new media have influenced are presented with the book and the iPod as exemplars for their respective technologies. Implications for the future of the “book” in both technologies are addressed. This paper references sources in both the history of the book and print culture and modern writings on personal digital devices as social phenomena.