THE PARALLEL RISE OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE
WRITTEN WORD
Highly sophisticated
technology and one of the oldest means of human communication, the written word,
continue to be inextricably entwined, expanding side by side like the
proverbial odd couple.
Verbal communication has
evolved at light speed, with talking on the spot seemingly dominating how we
communicate. After all, we have Skype, face-to-face talks on fancy phones, “Go To
Meetings” for job-related face-to-face discussions, Instagram how-to videos,
and TED webinars. People are ubiquitously seeing and speaking to one another on
screens in real time, whether it’s for high-stakes negotiations, cutting a
business deal with someone on the other side of the globe, catching up with
friends and family, or simply having a laid-back chat. We have voice
recognition and robots, with people at a distance telling drones, space travelers,
and other non-humans in algorithmic messages what to do. Also, camera phones’
pictures, as they say, “are worth a thousand words.”
But just as pundits
predicted the end of books we hold in our hands when Kindle, Nook, and other
e-readers saturated the market, the written word—written by us individually or
collectively, written in complete sentences, paragraphs, and pages—has not
fallen into the realm of dodo birds and dinosaurs. If anything, the written
word, created and disseminated by human hands (with the aid of technology) has
continued to thrive and expand its reach. And, at least with the truncated
writing in Twitter and texting, millions of people who might not have composed
written communications beyond their school years and job-related documents, are
engaging in daily person-to-person writing.
Utilitarian Websites: A Modern Necessity
The majority of reputable
businesses interested in “branding” themselves, in having an “internet
presence,” a “profile” in their business domain, establish and maintain a
website. Individuals who are themselves “the business”—independent consultants,
authors, lecturers, life coaches, private teachers and tutors, for example—also
increasingly tout their work on professional websites. Technology and the
old-fashioned primo communication tool, writing, are like a pair of gloves. You
can’t have one without the other.
Whether websites are maintained
by the owners themselves, or by webmasters, the ability to write clear,
attractive, compelling prose, to communicate in a friendly, accessible manner
with clients or potential clients, can make the difference between a business
that thrives and one that stagnates. Technology has enabled websites to have
bells and whistles, photos, music, videos, and interactive gizmos, that a
simple written document lacks, but it’s the written
words on the page that work their magic and help a business succeed.
Citizen Journalists: Bloggers with a Cause
Ever heard of The Huffington Post, or Huff Post? Created in 2005 by famed
blogger/commentator Arianna Huffington and three other blogger columnists, the Huff Post has been called the most powerful
news source in the world and, in 2012, became the first commercial online
newspaper to win a Pultizer Prize, the most prestigious writing award in the U.S. It grew
exponentially and has garnered numerous awards, including the #1 rank out of 15
top-ranked political websites in America.
Thousands of bloggers write
columns and articles for the site without compensation, just for the
opportunity to be published. Also, prominent experts in varied fields regularly
contribute blogs and columns. Each month, over a million comments are written
by readers and posted to Huff Post. The
Huff Post is the poster child for the
rise and success of the written word
on digital media, as well as the engagement of the international public to
write commentary on hot topics the digital newspaper covers.
Admittedly, the Huff Post is an anomaly, with its astonishing
success. But bloggers like you and me have staked out territories in cyberspace
and regularly dish on topics ranging from the small and insignificant but
personally appealing, to the more momentous issues that well-known blogs cover.
Political issues are routinely debated and dissected by “citizen journalists”
in their blogs and websites all across America. These “journalists” are
writing about topics, issues, and events that were once monopolized by the
“mainstream media” (long-established newspapers and broadcast media; also
called “MSM”) who, prior to the internet, had sole proprietorship of media
information as gatekeepers of what news got reported, when, where, and how. Citizen
journalists, in fact, sometimes beat the MSM to the punch in discovering and
uncovering vital news events and information and capturing the attention of the
nation.
We no longer just rely on
the MSM as our eyes and ears on what’s happening. The people’s eyes and ears
collectively, via technology coupled with the people’s writing, have become our
conduit to keeping up with the world. The sociopolitical landscape has thus shifted
tremendously since websites, blogs, and citizen journalists exploded onto the
scene...and throughout the scene.
Social Media: The Written Word Flourishes
Though they are sometimes minimized in
importance, perhaps due to their brevity and greater focus on the personal
rather than on gravitas, the “social media”—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, My
Space, Tumblr, and the many other venues for expression—have fingers flying and
people writing daily, often throughout the day in fits and spurts. Whether it’s
a coughed-out phrase, emotional protestations of love, terse political
commentary, or invitations to engage, the social media cast their nets wide,
and wider, across the globe.
In the 21st century, our
communication is like a pair of gloves: technology, with its gee-whiz alacrity
and ability to wow; and the old-fashioned written compositions we each hammer
together with our fingers and hands and our own brains. Put these two
seemingly-mismatched gloves together, and you have human interaction that has
something for everyone: the visual, the oral, and the best of both worlds.
