Digital vs Traditional: Journaling

    

    The advancement of technology brought up numerous possibilities that make our life easier. Whether for the use of communicating with other individuals that are not in your area to utilizing it for the purpose of productivity, you cannot deny the power of what technology did to society. For the past years, I decided to make a journal or should I say diary, because I wanted to document my life in my old school to have something to reminisce with a personal touch of being handwritten by myself. I think what makes me personally do the diary, even though it is stigmatized by the society that it was not common for a man to do, for the reason that I wanted to see if I would have a great or terrible experience studying in a new school because I was terrified on transferring from my old school even though I had a horrifying past in that place. Looking back at my old journals, I am proud of myself that I kept a lot of memories stored in those notebooks with pictures, receipts, memorabilia to further explain what happened in those particular moments.

    In the school that I am currently enrolled in, which is in Far Eastern University (FEU)- Manila, there would be times where we are required to purchase an e-book for a particular course in our department. I got an iPad 6th Generation (2018) last June 2019 through the help of my parents to accommodate the shift from traditional to digital books. I did not get the Apple pencil that can works on my iPad because it was honestly so costly and I did not want to burden my parents with a tool that I might not use in the future. This is why I waited for a higher-quality alternative for Apple pencils. I research the alternatives on the internet and there is a plethora that I was a bit confused on what to get. I also watched reviews on YouTube for substitutes and through browsing on a shopping application called "Shopee", I finally decided to purchase an alternative to the Apple pencil that is inexpensive and promising based on the reviews on the app. I got it last May 2020, before my summer term started and I decided to also purchase an app in the Apple App Store for note-taking purposes called " GoodNotes 5."

    Before I purchased the pencil alternative and app, I was addicted to watching videos on YouTube about journaling using the iPad and I was thrilled on getting the pencil to finally start using it and making my own version of digital journals. As I was using the pencil with the iPad for journaling and taking notes for my online classes, I had a realization that I am not enjoying the feeling of making journals using the digital method. There are positive additions that digital journaling has compared to the traditional and it is the following:

1. You can erase what you have already written without using any correction tools and not having to worry about the pages of a notebook.

2. You do not have to print pictures because there are options for inserting them directly through the app.

3. There would be endless color options that you can use without purchasing anything because it is already embedded with the app.

4. There is an option to save the journal through the cloud. This can give you access to your journals on every device that supports and can read the file on your journal.

5. There are a plethora of free resources that you can search on the internet to spice up your journal. If you have the privilege of having petty cash to spend, you can purchase premium templates and stickers on sites that a lot of artists are creating for the people engaged with digital journaling.

Frankly, there would be a lot of positives that I can state on using your Ipad as a tool for journaling but there is one reason why I cannot use it anymore for my own journaling.

The reason would be is because I do not feel that I am making my own journal with my personal creativity attached to it. I can definitely just add the pictures that I took with my cameras, receipts that I can just scan but adding it to my journal does not make it feel the same as having the pictures printed out and attaching them to a physical notebook. I know this might be a moronic excuse but on my behalf, if I continue making digital journals, I do not think it would be sustainable in the long run. I always have my iPad with me wherever I go but it is not certainly for the sake of journaling and I tried on making it as one. Through experience, I would just continue on doing the traditional method of journaling that I found more pleasurable on making because of its process and the feeling of touching the paper itself with the pictures and memorabilia attached to it with glue and a bit of sticker and washi tape.