Why are so many literary mediums fading into obscurity
in this day and age? The answer lays in
recent technological advances, like personal computers, smart phones, and the internet
that makes information easier to access than ever. People can stay in touch instantly by using
their phones, email, or the many social networking websites, like Facebook and
Twitter. Today’s readers don’t spend
hours in libraries, looking through countless books for research. Now they search the web and information is
just a click away. This trend has had
some painful effects on many print industries.
Many newspapers, like Newsweek, have switched to online publications,
because most people don’t go out and buy newspapers anymore. The book store Borders went out of business,
because of the increased popularity of eBooks.
Many complain about these changes, but this is just a natural shift. With increased technology there is a trend
that is moving away from printed writing, while moving toward electronic writing. This
all begs the question, are the changes good or bad?
Some
would argue this shift in reading and writing habits is detrimental. The internet itself has had a powerful impact
on the way we read nowadays. The types
of readers that the internet is spitting out are impatient. Nicholas Carr notes that “what the Net seems
to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” People don’t stop to read long articles on
the internet. They “power browse”
through the web, and are always moving forward, while rarely going
backwards. People also now enjoy the
ease of eBooks and online news, and as a result eBooks have taken $3.2 billion
of their market (oedb) from print competitors, and most newspapers today are
published solely online. Chris Hedges
would argue that this digital age is cultivating a “semi-literate” population
who only understand “images and slogans.”
He talks about how these people lack “the ability to think for one’s self,”
and that politicians will take advantage of that to gain control. These arguments paint a dark picture, but the
world has been in a state of change for as long as history has been recorded. We are all just along for the ride. Besides, these changes are good. The transition to electronic writing cuts
back on logging for paper. Anything that
saves trees can’t be that bad. With
newspapers going online, they have become more accessible. My grandmother loves reading the newspaper on
her iPad, because she has trouble getting out and about. The internet brings her news straight to her. Hedges would say that today’s America is a
barely literate population, but this is simply not the case. According to Lunsford’s study the kids of
today are reading more than ever before, and I hope this is a continuing trend.
The shift to digital reading and writing has had some
wonderful effects. The internet has made
information more accessible than ever before.
Students today don’t have to spend hours in libraries to gather their
research. They’re one web search away
from a massive pool of good and bad information, but it’s up to the reader to
judge the value of what they’re reading.
Today’s readers may not read lengthy articles or even books anymore, but
they read more than one would think.
They “power browse” through web pages, never stopping, but instead, they
look for the main idea and judge the value of what they see. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter,
and Google+ are a wonderful new source of reading and writing. In them people can share their thoughts and
experiences with their friends in a live feed.
Many people today will spend hours just reading about what their friends
have been doing or thinking. I wouldn’t
necessarily call Facebook or its ilk a formal literary medium, but it can’t be
argued that thousands of people read and write on social networking sites on a
regular basis. However, the best example
of the way reading and writing have changed is the internet’s very own literary
medium. Yes, I’m talking about the blog.
Blogging
exemplifies how we as readers and writers have changed. Andrew Sullivan describes blogging as
“instant and global self-publishing.”
“Instant and global.” These two
words are the foundations of blogging and also the direction our literary shift
is heading in. The majority of blog
posts are between 100 and 500 words (modern1). This short length appeals to our short
attention spans. Like I said before,
today’s readers and writers are impatient.
The readers like blogs, because they are relatively short. One’s attention drifts after a couple pages
so a short blog post is ideal. The
writers like blogging, because they can self-publish their work to a global
audience for free. This idea of “global
self-publishing” really wasn’t possible until the internet. This is bringing about a golden age for
writers. Any average Joe can go to a
site like Blogger and start his own blog with relatively little difficulty. This ease is unheard of. Before the internet, one would have to be a
recognized writer, or have access to a large sum of money to get published, but
that is no longer the case. I personally
have found blogging to be an incredibly fun way to express myself. I hadn’t blogged before this class, but I will
continue to do so after this class is over.
Nobody knew what a blog was twenty years ago, and now it’s one of the
fastest growing literary mediums.
This
new shift in literacy is also having a profound effect on writing. Writing style changes based on the medium,
and the internet’s new writers exemplify
the current trend. They write what they
think as they think it. Blogging is the
end result of this. As Sullivan puts it,
“We blog now-as news reaches us, as facts emerge.” I believe blogs will continue to evolve and
grow until blogging is one of the main mediums that writers use to publish
their work. I also believe this writing
class is an example of how writing has changed.
I think this blog writing class model is fun, accessible, and something
similar could be used in High School classes.
The school could make its own
blog like database for students to post there writings. It would make submitting homework much simpler,
and it would also make it easier to get input from peers. Society and technology keep moving forward
side by side.
All
of these changes in reading and writing lead one to wonder… What’s next? Clearly our populations reading and writing
habits are changing. This new trend of
impatience that is evident in today’s readers is leading to increasingly short
and to the point writings. Many new
writing activities have emerged, because of the web. Activities like blogging, posting,
commenting, and even trolling have become the norm. Hedges made a good note in that the trend
seems to be to a more image based society.
People today fill their writings with all sorts of visuals, like
pictures, videos, and even little text faces.
The internet bombards its users with visual ads on basically every
webpage, but these ads fund the websites and keep them accessible to
everyone. These ads are aimed at the new readers, by being getting their
message across in the fastest and flashiest way they can. New readers
won’t delve deeply into a site, unless they have a significant personal
interest in the content. In the
future, I imagine publications will continue to grow shorter and more image
based, so as to grab the fleeting attention span for as long as possible.
These
new literary trends are shoving old habits aside. People will continue to gravitate towards the
ease of the digital age. It’s a natural
progression. People are continuing to
use eBooks as opposed to hard copies, and it’s easy to see why. People can house an entire library of books
on their computer of tablet. EBooks are
cheaper and help save the environment, by cutting back on tree
consumption. Web research has made research
projects exceptionally easier too. I’ve
never spent an extended period of time doing research in a library, unless I
was on the computer. Using mainly
encyclopedias and books for research is almost unheard of nowadays. Everybody uses the internet. One has to make the distinction between good
and bad web sources, but that is an easy trade off to make in exchange for the
vast amount information available on the web.
These
technological advancements will continue to reshape the world as we know it. The internet has made it easier than ever before
to publish personal writing. All of the
major writers are going to have their work available on the internet. Whether they are blog posts or eBooks, they’ll
be on the web. The new writers will be intertwined by the internet. Their work will be accessible by a worldwide
audience, and this global pool of information will continue to grow. The “new readers” will swiftly swim through
the pool of information. They’ll be a
click away from everything. It’ll be a
golden age for writers. However change
is a double bladed sword. The last
Borders closed on September 18th of 2011, and this leads me to
ponder what’s next? Will it be
libraries, blogs, cell phones, or even the beloved Facebook that lands on the
chopping block of change?
Sources
- America
the Illiterate By
Chris Hedges
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