The Double Take

It is 7:31 a.m. I am halfway through my first cup of coffee. I hope this makes coherent sense (or is that redundant?)

I first read Baron’s Pixels to Pencils, freshman year of college in Doug Down’s WRIT 205 Introduction to Writing Studies class. I believe it was the first piece he assigned. My eighteen-year-old brain struggled to remain focused through eighteen pages of text, but I finished impressed with the idea that writing was, and always will be, technology.

Reading it the second time required less concerted focus, but naturally, I have read many more scholarly articles since freshman year, and grown my repertoire of understanding and comprehension around those types of pieces. But like I was saying, an eighteen I was stunned and excited at how technology would affect language, how our discourse would change alongside technology.

Now, as I read Baron’s essay, I find myself less surprised when considering the digital influence on writing, perhaps because the digital revolution is full-swing in process, and I both spectate and play on its field. I am both consumer and producer of digital texts, and the question, “will technology shape writing?” carries an obvious “yes.”

A child of the nineties, I grew up concurrent with computer development. I remember how I convinced my mother that drafting by a computer was better than drafting by hand, and how my youngest brother learned to type his name before writing it out by hand. I also find it humorous that original keyboards were designed to slow the typist down, whereas I value typing for its ability to keep up with my speed of thought. But Baron retains more pre-technology experience, and thus can rightly question technology’s influence, but to the current generation, computers have always been an inherit element of the writing process.

I find it humorous that proponents of “traditional writing” revere the style as something pure or unmediated, when Baron clearly points out that, “…so far as we know, writing itself begins not as speech transcription but as a relatively restricted and obscure record-keeping shorthand” (p.19) The first texts were probably similar to acronyms that teenagers get bashed for using; shorthand, simple, with agreed-upon meanings. The Sumerians used LOL and IKR; that is exactly what I am saying.

People tend to react, shy away, from anything alien, but everything is alien at some point, even the pencil, as Baron illustrates. Interestingly, it seems that as technology progresses, it increasingly mirrors our physical interaction with the world, a sophisticated “return to the basics.” Touch screens are designed to replicate our physical understandings—thumb down on a page, it slides down. Spread the screen with your fingers, and it zooms in. Technology is at once distinctly separated from the physical world of interaction, and right alongside it.

I see technology rapidly included in all aspects of writing, from brain-mapping software that promotes idea-generation to Word Processing that automatically starts noticing the writer’s textual characteristics, and tries to assist (like auto-numbering, auto-headers, etc.) To me, the looming question is: what effect does this influence have?

For one, we produce more text. Anyone can hop on blogspot.com, create a blog, and start clickety-clacketing away their hopes and dreams, their opinions, pictures of their abnormally photogenic lunch, and so forth. Textual production rapidly increased, because technology enables us to write with speed and efficiency, and we can easily self-publish. More ideas are circulating, and when something neat or novel comes along, the cyber crowd pushes it viral. People experience sudden fame, due to everything from uploading heart-rending covers of popular music to epicallycrashing while running on a treadmill. The language we use also changed – terms like “viral,” “spam,” “outgoing,” “loading,” “memory,” “buffering,” even “search” took on very different connotations. We also use written text more than voiced communication. Calling someone has become somewhat intrusive; sending a text is more polite. Technology also allowed the integration of multi-modality into everyday conversation, take Snap Chat for example. Although overlooked or discredited, Snap Chat offers a very distinct type of communication, where short phrases are accompanied by facial expressions. Those who use it become proficient in writing concisely, and using their expression to communicate. Technology certainly shapes communication, and it is really remarkable.

Downsides certainly exist, like children spending large amounts of time online and forgetting about all the wonderful dirt and leaves outside to explore. There is also cyber bullying, the permanence of the internet’s memory (that photo posted online will always be online), the increase in pornography, and so forth.

But, I dare say, the benefits outweigh the downsides. Technology allowed Stephen Hawing to write A Brief History of Time, among others. Just as Thoreau (my auto correct just changed his name to “Thorough;” oh the implications of technology not knowing its history) could have stabbed someone with his nice, sharp, pencil, so I can get online via my laptop and blast that classmate who annoys me, via social media. I think too often we create technology like Frankensteinian monsters, inventing that which soon moves outside our control. As always, the weapon is only as dangerous, detrimental, or beneficial as its user (and in our case, the collective user of society at large.)