After reading the writing prompt for today’s blog (something of interest concerning writing and technology), I began to think about how technology effects our writing. Technology, computers, and the availability of the internet have drastically changed the writing experience. For starters, the physical aspects of writing have been greatly affected. When was the last time you wrote a paper actually by hand on paper? When was the last time you even used a typewriter? Computers and word processing programs have allowed us to write much more quickly and to edit our writing much easier. If I decide I don’t like my word choice in the first sentence, I just change it. I don’t have to get out a new sheet of paper and start all over again. If I am having trouble coming up with the perfect word (or I want to impress my readers with my expansive vocabulary) I simply right-click and I am presented with several synonyms I can use. I can even look up a word to make sure I know exactly what it means, and if I misuse or misspell a word, the computer will flag my mistake. Sometimes it will even automatically correct it for me! Technology has undoubtedly revolutionized the way we put our ideas to “paper.”
How do we get our ideas, and how do we find evidence to back them up? I remember in Elementary school writing a report about wallabies. I went to the library and searched through the books about animals. I found most of my information in the encyclopedia. Today, if I were writing a paper on wallabies, the first thing I would do would be to search Wikipedia for a page on the wallaby. Then I could find an online encyclopedia article (an official encyclopedia I could cite), and eventually I would probably google wallaby, being presented with over three million results. The availability of information has increased exponentially in the past few years, but it has complicated the problem of validating the information we find. It can be difficult to determine if a website presents true, well-researched information or if it is simply a well designed page presenting incorrect information.
Finally, technology has also transformed how writing gets to the reader. Long gone are the times when it took days for news to spread around the world. Now it barely takes seconds. Breaking news is text-messaged, emailed, posted online, and broadcast around the world in 5.1 surround sound. Surfing the web, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the multitude of information presented. Hundreds of thousands of blogs are updated daily. BarnesAndNoble.com provides a database of over one million books. I am able to use keywords to search for books of a certain topic or by a certain writer so that I can find the perfect book. Technology has definitely altered the writing process, but in the end, sometimes it can be refreshing to simply sit down and write your thoughts on paper—real paper. Sometimes the best books are ones you stumble upon in the corner of the library.
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