Technology and the Literary Society

-- By YuShi - 17 Dec 2009

"I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle."

-Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, July/August 2008.

Technology has changed the way I read...

I stumbled across Carr's article while flipping nonchalantly through an old copy of The Atlantic a few weeks ago. The catchy name of the piece jumped out at me, but it was Carr's story about his diminished attention span that soon caught my attention. His anecdote might as well have described me. A voracious reader all throughout middle and high school, I have not read a full novel for leisure in a couple years. The last book I attempted to read, Anna Karenina, I barely got past the midway point of the novel before giving up for good. It is not that I no longer have the time or the passion for reading - it remains one of my greatest ardors and I still read a decent amount during winter and summer breaks - but my reading habits have changed. Like Carr, I have a short attention span while reading and my mind frequently wanders, no matter how interesting the text. The days of my sitting down with a Bronte or Austen and reading for both content and style seem so long ago; nowadays I find myself perusing mostly short stories and magazine articles, things that I can begin and finish in a short amount of time. I resort to poetry to satiate my craving for style and eloquence.

...and also the way that I write...

My writing has also undergone a significant change over the years. Back in the days when pens and papers were still in vogue, every sentence that I wrote was painstakingly thought out to ensure that it was as well-said as it could be. That is no longer the case, as I have now become a more carefree, and maybe lazier, writer. Knowing that I can add, delete, or change anything simply with a few keyboard strokes, my writing has gotten more experimental and less planned. Instead of thinking and then writing, many times I find myself writing first and then looking back to see how good it sounds. My writing is also less florid and much tighter than before, perhaps a reflection of the fact that the writing process these days involves far less thinking that it once did. My attention span when writing - although better than when I am reading - is also not what it used to be. Sometimes I find myself repeating statements or reusing words because I had forgotten that I said those things already.

...but should I be worried?

Without a question, the glitters of technology and the internet have led to a shortening of my attention span, causing changes in my reading and writing habits. I am frustrated with my inability to finish the novels that I begin, and find it disturbing that my writing has turned more technical and, in my opinion, less eloquent. Am I becoming less literary because of technology?

That is the question I struggled with after reading Carr's article. On one hand, I am reading just as much, if not more, than I ever did. I read the newspaper everyday (thanks to nytimes.com), I read several extremely well-written blogs on a daily basis, and I read free online versions of magazines that I would never have subscribed to otherwise. In terms of writing: I have a blog that I use to keep my writing sharp, and I was never one who would have kept diaries. I email frequently; the kind for which I cannot email writing snail mails. It is technology that has afforded me the opportunity to engage in these activities. On the other hand, there is the shorter attention span...

Changes? Yes, but not necessarily bad changes.

Ultimately, I decided that - at least for myself - while my habits have certainly changed, the changes have not necessarily been for the worse. I have a much better eye for picking up information quickly, and being less deliberate with my writing means that I can now write faster and am more focused on conveying information than delivering eloquence. Given the profession that I am about to enter into, these changes may even prove practical.

What if these changes are impacting a wider segment of society? I often wonder about that and think about the ramifications for our literary future. Will we lose eloquence? Or will eloquence be redefined? Will novels continue to be the bedrock of literature? Or will novellas and essays shape our literary future? I do believe we will see a shift in our literary habits, but I feel that it will be a change that reflects people's needs and preferences. Technology will not bring the end of literature, but will simply reshape literature into something that resonates with tomorrow's society - and that might means novels with shorter chapters or a proliferation of short stories like never before. More dramatically, maybe magazines will be the new novel. In any case, I do not believe that technology is making us less literary, because being "literary" is a fluid concept whose definition changes as society changes, and what form it ultimately takes is a fascinating question that might not be answered until well after our lifetime.

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