Technology Impacts Literature **Entry #4

As I look back on my entries on this blog, I have noticed that my entries have a common thread: asking questions. Although I do not always have the answers to the questions I have posed, I believe that it is a good thing to be continually questioning and reviewing what technology has to offer us--as educators as well as everyday citizens.
For my final post, I'd like to stick to the questioning and pose a query that I find compelling and frustrating at the same time: What has technology done to the world of books? Let's have a look at some of the remarkable changes that the written word has gone through.
There was a time when story was transmitted orally from one person to another. As mankind developed the technology of written word, story took on a new life. Now stories were compiled into scrolls and eventually into books, and writers became conduits of knowledge that humanity relied upon. Painstaking book binding gave way to the printing press, which gave added strength to texts as they were mass-produced and more widely available to the public.

Now we have seen a stark decline in the production of hard-copy books as electronic media has recently risen to prominence in the world of written text. It has become much more common to have books released electronically with only a small amount ordered to be printed; newspapers are becoming defunct as readers turn to the screen rather than the page for their information; even personal correspondence is carried out online rather than with a pen and page

There are two important shifts in this timeline that I'd like to draw attention to: the first is the invention of the printing press and the second is the invention of the electronic text.
Before the printing press was invented, text was in the hands of the privileged and therefore knowledge was associated with class. The printing press enabled mass-production at a greatly reduced cost, therefore granting the masses access to this form of information. With the invention of the electronic text (or e-reader), coupled with the reduction in print media, literature is moving back into the hands of the elite, or those who have the financial ability to acquire the technology necessary.
The question for you is simple: Is that okay?

What can Technology bring to the Creativity Scene? **Entry #3

I have the capability, any day of the week, to sit down with a pen and paper and start writing a story. Does the introduction of a word processor increase the likelihood that my story will be unique and interesting? Likewise, I can always pick up a pencil and draw an image; does the increasing ubiquitous of art software increase my chances of creating a masterpiece?

I have to admit that I neither agree nor disagree with the idea of technology as inhibiting creativity. I can personally attest to the benefits of a word processing program. I have written essays that I believe were much more detailed and creative because I had the aid of technology to get my thoughts out faster. For instance, being able to type an idea in a couple of seconds, rather than the minute or two that handwriting would take, has helped me to keep a certain train of thought and has increased my ability to stay on that particular topic, with depth and significant ideas as the emerging result.

 

On the other hand, I do not believe that technology ever bestows creativity on those who did not previously possess it. If I do not study the material that is presented to me, the use of technology does not enable me to write a compelling argument.

In the end, technology can act as a fire-wire connection to an individual's creativity but, if there wasn't any creativity there in the first place, technology will not help at all.