“What if I failed to save a copy of my spreadsheet before I monkeyed around with a scenario that turned out to be disastrous…I don’t really want to page back through versions of my work; I want to turn back the clocks.” (374)
Laurel brings up a very interesting point here. I can’t even begin to count the number of times that I’ve made changes to a word document and wished that I hadn’t. We spend all of this time reading, researching and writing, only to redraft. But as Laurel states, what if we liked our original draft? How do we undo what we already undid?
I think that the idea of “undo” and “redo” are beyond resourcesful; however, do their effects eliminate the idea of “time”? For example, let’s say you wrote an entire paragraph that took you 15 minutes. After reading it over, you decided that the paragraph does not fit with your paper, and you delete it. Does that mean that you also deleted time? And for that matter, if you then decide that you want that paragraph back and you undo your delete, did you just take advantage of the idea of time?
When it comes to a digital world, I think we need to redefine what we mean by time. In a world where we can undo and redo hours of work in a matter of nanoseconds, by what do you really gauge time?
I know i can think of many times in my life where i wished i could "redo". I for one can say that i truly wish there was a ctrl +z button for real life. That would be awesome.
ReplyDeleteis it so much deleting time or shifting it around? for example, a lot of macs have a built in featured called time machine that backs up the entire computer incrementally throughout a day, so if you deleted something in a version of your document, you could possibly retrieve an earlier version made hours ago.
ReplyDeletepersonally i don't have an answer beyond that, but it's something to think about.
Great point Lauren.... I know I've utilized that crl Z button more than a few times!
ReplyDeleteI highly enjoy the subject of this blog! But it is true, if we compare computer time to "real" time, theoretically, if they were at all the same, we could have undo buttons, or redo buttons. Or think about when you do something and know you will never be able to do that the same way again... thus we could use a CTRL+C and CTRL+P.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, good thinking all around. I think Laurel's main issue is with the step-by-step process of the undo function, which uses a spatial approach of going from one page to another, as opposed to, say, a scroll bar where the text would shift back in a more continuous fashion, like pressing rewind.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of CTRL+C and CTRL+P too! I CTRL+Z is an obvious one but those are very clever!
ReplyDelete