Techno-Speak

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The short answer, quite possibly yes, at least in the sense of memorization and such, but the more important question for me would be, is it worth it? Are there benefits to having a wealth of human information at our fingertips that makes losing the ability to retain it all worthwhile? Before humans began writing information down, people had herculean memories. In comparison, the brains of today are rather puny in their ability to recall facts. Studies have shown that when people believe that a piece of information will be available to them later, they are more likely to forget this bit of human knowledge. Nicolas Carr’s aforementioned question raises issues of minimal memorization, lack of concentration, and technological dependence. It is the last line of Nicolas Carr’s article that is especially unnerving: “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (Carr).
By now, many of us must realize what we are losing through Google, through the internet, through 24/7 distraction, but we are still plugged in. We therefore continue because we believe the damage to be worth it, so what do we gain? In terms of essay-writing, we stand to gain much from the advancements in technology. Hyperlinks, in particular, help to facilitate the creative mind. Adam Kenney’s digital interactive cyberdrama, The Museum, is composed of text and hyperlinks, leading the reader in whichever direction he wishes to go, much like a real museum. Kenney’s choice of media works to simulate the actual experience of a museum, making this particular medium far more effective than pen and paper for this particular message. These elements of choice and interaction in The Museum work to push the limits of the traditional reading experience. Janet Murray, author of Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, notes that her electronic fiction students are becoming more and more comfortable with the electronic medium and she expresses excitement at the implications that this knowledge will have on the future of electronic writing. She writes that “every year [her] students arrive feeling more at home with electronic environments and are more prepared to elicit something with the tone of a human voice out of the silent circuitry of the machine” (Murray 9). For Murray, the increase in electronic advancements is thrilling in that it allows one to test the boundaries of creativity. Hypertexts, video, audio, images are all available to a writer working in the electronic medium.
If Google is making us stupid, at least the rest of the internet is making up for it. Although yes, our memories are not what they used to be, and yes we are more easily distracted, these are inevitable byproducts of the changing times. We keep using the internet because it is useful. The internet is a powerful tool for the writer and provides a medium for creative expression that would not be possible with mere pen and paper. Learning to tune out the distractions of the internet seems to me to be a more realist and useful objective than unplugging oneself completely. Stop using Google. Grab a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a novel. Turn off the computer and focus. It will not be easy. The internet has a lot to offer for the writer, but just like any tool, he must learn how to use it productively.

Writing in the Electronic Age

Everyone should indeed write. The written word is a method of expression that deepens one’s understanding of a topic and allows people to interact significantly with the glut of media that bombards them day by day, producing an intelligent and aware populace. Although I would not personally want to read everything that anyone wishes to write, their right to write should at least be protected and encouraged. The technological progress of recent years has allowed more people to have a voice, learning to express and communicate their thoughts to the world. In his text entitled “Should Everybody Write?,” Dennis Baron expands on the idea of a world in which everyone is a writer, emphasizing both the triviality and even danger of that which is produced through the marriage of technology and writing while also supporting the freedom to write that accompanies the electronic age. He asks that since now more people who have the opportunity to write if everyone should indeed write, answering, “sure, because it increases the chances that there will be something you will want to read, and you can just ignore the rest” (Baron). In this way, Baron advocates for a community of writers who are often bombarded by the ever-expanding glut of writing but are ultimately benefited by their access to the works of those to whom they would otherwise by closed off. However, not only does the abundance of writing create more works that one could read, but it also opens one up to more of the contrasting and perhaps marginalized voices that one should read.

Sven Birkerts, in his book The Gutenberg Elegies, however, remains skeptical of the opportunities that technology brings in allowing more people to write. In doing so reading, and by extension writing, becomes a highly public affair wherein the voice of the uneducated or the unqualified drown out those of the privileged few actual writers. As a result, Birkerts argues, language and individuality suffer. He notes that “fifty to a hundred million people…form their ideas about what is going on in America and in the world from the same basic package of edited images” (Birkerts 120). Here, Birkerts makes a valid point in that sometimes what is popular overwhelms what may be considered more culturally valuable or contain a different point of view through the globalization of ideas. However, technology also gives marginalized voices a chance to gain wider audiences than ever before. He also notes that publishers accept fewer and fewer pieces, hoping to make a profit on popularity rather than quality (Birkerts 123). Although this statement may be true, technology also opens up new means of getting one’s work into the marketplace without help of a third party through blogs or self-published electronic copies.The issue, therefore, does not seem to be a shortage of worthy writing.

For Baron, conversely, the issue becomes not one of a shortage of writing but of the quality of such writing, a topic that Birkerts also explores. Baron asserts that the availability of methods of writing for a large audience helps to facilitate the overabundance of unskilled writing. Birkerts, however, concerns himself more with “language erosion” that takes places as faster means of communication make writing less about style and more about convenience. He warns that “language will grow increasingly impoverished through a series of vicious cycles” (Birkerts 129). Both writers concern themselves with the possibility of technology bringing about a downfall of the English language. Baron seems to tackle this issue from a more realistic view, examining developments in writing technology long before the introduction of computers. According to the author, “every new communication technology has the capacity to expand the set of who gets to write and talk, who gets to publish and be heard” (Baron). Since the beginning of the written language, the way people speak has always been influenced by how they write and how they write is also influence by the medium of this writing, but one cannot necessarily assert that this trend is necessarily novel or disastrous. The telegraph, with its imposed limits on word count with regards to cost, would have caused more damage to modern language than the computer, which allows one to write to his heart’s content, if the spoken language could be so deeply harmed by the writing medium. Birkerts asserts that communication has been “flattened…over distances” (Birkerts 128), but if this is so then it has occurred far before computers and the internet arrived on the scene. Birkerts may be correct in assuming that technology changes the spoken and written language, but does this fact mean that this language is necessarily becoming crude or unpleasing? Language evolves, but it does not necessarily erode. One can still become lost in a wonderfully created and populated world of a book in the modern age just as one could in a novel from the nineteenth century with its “complex discourse patterns” (Birkerts 128). In fact, Birkerts also fears for the fate of historical perspective once every book and every piece of information is at our fingertips, but the fact that language from dissimilar eras is presented differently, that a novel crafted in the nineteenth century does not sound like one that was written yesterday, helps to reinforce one’s view of time and history. It helps one to see his writing as another in a long line of powerful and beautiful writing that has been evolving long before he was born and will continue long after he is gone. Yes, everyone should write. The well-crafted stories that have captured the imaginations of generations of readers should and will continue. When writing was a tool only available to the elite, literate members of society, it was clear that the perspective of the upper class was the one being predominantly displayed and that these same elite members were not only the writers but also the readers. As more people gain the ability to write and make their voices heard, the reading lives of all people will be benefited by the knowledge and perspective of others who have not had the same experiences as oneself. One’s life can be profoundly enriched by these newly emerging views, and if not, well, one does not have to read what he does not want to read.