Paper 3

This is not new news. I could have predicted this. You could have predicted this. My ten year old cousin could have predicted this. That man who held the door open for you this morning could have predicted this. Writing is constantly changing. It does not take an expert scholar to figure that out. It is just common knowledge for anyone who is observant of their society and it’s surroundings. The materiality of writing has always been changing. So people used to write with sticks and now we type everything onto computers and word processors; just because the way we output text has changed does not mean the text is different. The text is still just words and words need to evolve with whoever is using them. It is completely logical for writing to be adapted into digital forms today. Our language evolves with these texts, creating new means of communication and forming dialogues within these texts. Connections that would have been impossible ten years ago are now second nature between writers and readers and print text and digital text.

Comparing printed books, magazines and newspapers to tablets and blogs and ebooks has become tiresome. Again, they are all the same words, they are just in different formats. It can be brought down to about two main different factors: mediums of communicating and distributing information to keep up with the latest technology available and personal preference of how exactly people want to communicate and distribute that information. 

Preference can become reliant on a generation’s way of thinking. The past twenty-five to thirty years have been full in the digital age but what about people who were born before all this technology and digital text was at our fingertips for easy access? People like what they know. So, maybe my Dad would rather hold a newspaper than read newspaper articles online or on a kindle like device. There is no difference in the text and it just comes down to plain and simple preference. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. I would not be able to go through one day without it and my entire future and career rely on it, like most people today, no matter who they are or what their job is. But, why are we so concerned about loosing printed text? If enough people want printed texts and find proficient and appropriate use for them, they will not be eliminated completely. History may prove that technology overpowers most things. “Going digital” is usually the easiest, fastest, most efficient way to get whatever you need done. However, books have been around for so many years that it would be unthinkable to try to actually get rid of them instead of replace them. 

The different mediums of text today is never-ending. Between computers and tablets, which are the next best thing for digital text, options for finding texts are vast. Kindles, iPads, Moto Xooms, and more are being released to house ebooks and web capabilities that obviously uncover the endless texts on the web. Digital text enhances communication between all humans and is the most efficient way of sharing information. It is instantaneous and either free or much cheaper than a book. Today, institutions have taken advantage of the technology available to them, enhancing classroom and learning settings for students. Tools such as smart boards are being used with children as young as Kindergarteners. This gives them a favorable position in learning new technology, and for this kind of technology to become instinctual to them. Now children are growing up with an advantage in and out of the classroom. Bolter agrees that, blogs and virtual classrooms, originally based off of chat rooms and forums create a positive learning environment for students because they can interact while in class and/or outside of class, such as in their dorms, complimenting face to face discussion in the classroom (114). Examples of these types of online classrooms can range from things as simple as blogs or closed message threads to websites that allow students to post video, text, pictures, links and more, an example being voicethread.com. 

It is inevitable for the way we use words to change when the space those words are in changes. Jay David Bolter dedicates an entire chapter to talk about “Refashioned Dialogues” in his book, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. That is irony at its best: A man spends his time writing two hundred or so pages about how print is outdated and digital text is taking over, and then prints it in a book. The best part is that this is the Second Edition of this book which means that Bolter has printed two books about how printed text is being transformed into digital text. Although digital dialogues are not as structured as a book and can seem as if they are all over the place, digital dialogues create bridges and paths to conversations that would not be possible with a printed text. As Bolter explains, "A written text is a structure in space that also implies a structure in time...When a reader is reading a novel or an essay, the words create a rhythm of expectations" (99). You cannot have a conversation with the author of a book by writing notes on the pages, but you can comment on blogs and some authors even publish full essays and even novels online now. With tablets that let you read ebooks on them like the kindle, you can comment on anything publicly and then other readers of that same text can answer your comments and questions. Dialogue between the reader and writer, between readers and different types of media, and between audio and visual texts have recently changed the most. Conversations about anything imaginable are possible because of the web. Hypertext enables people to add on to any text imaginable and as Bolter explains it, “If hypertext could remediate the voice of the text it might suggest a return to oral forms such as dialogue” (112). Publishing text online is as easy as one click. These started with ideas as simple as chat rooms or MOOs, allowing people to communicate with others at any time, but now the have developed into full interactive blogs, ebooks, and webpages that are connecting people throughout the world. The internet opens up an entire new world that, “allows individuals not only to represent themselves in words and images, but also to publish these representations to an audience of million at almost no expense” (119).

Bolter seems concerned about having an option as a reader to choose your own path when reading a text. There are many books that can make you jump around and pick your own ending or path within the story. Bolter describes why it is so important to have these paths by comparing reading to choosing which path to take. "To read is to follow one path from among those suggested by the layout of the text...The codex and the printed book both allow the writer to suggest many paths throughout the same book" (100). However, hypertext similarly, if not in a better way can create an ongoing path or journey for the reader by just browsing the web through links. You may start out looking for one thing but after a few clicks, you could have travelled far from your original path, sometimes discovering great new things by just one simple click.

In conclusion, the way people communicate words is always going to change. These changes will occur slowly and over large periods of time but from rocks to paper to computers, text has progressed greatly throughout human history. Who knows what will be next after computers and tablets. Perhaps one day, we will be able to record text in mid air with our very own fingers. No writing space, no writing utensil, just our hands.

Works Cited:

1. Bolter, David Jay. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 2001. Second Edition. (p. 99-120) April 26th, 2011.