Electronic Writing: A New Generation of Writing

Humans will always be thinking of ways to make their lives easier and more efficient. Recently these advances in technology have been progressing faster and faster. In the past 15 to 20 years writing has taken a drastic change toward the internet. These changes will continue to follow the same pattern and will change future generations’ lives. With recent changes to technology, aspects of education have already begun to shift toward online writing and learning. This new technology is becoming fast and easier to use, making print more obsolete. Print however is using smart paper to integrate into a digital age. In this shift to a paperless world, writing itself is also changing to adapt to its new online environment. All of these aspects will make up the future of how we view literature and writing.

In the past writing has always been structured and proper but recently informal writing has been accepted. With online writing people are trying to draw in their audience and make them keep reading because there is so much content out on the internet. This has encouraged writers to stop being as stiff with their work and try and appeal to as many people as possible. This change in writing has already transformed online but it could lead to changes in scholarly language. If a work wants to get noticed on the internet, people need to be able to entice their audience and try and keep them reading your article as long as possible. Students are already being encouraged to use their own voice and give it their own personal touch but now it can be taken to a whole new level. Yes writing will still be structured in the future but it will be structured differently. The most successful articles will be the ones that are simple and easy to read and at the same time are exciting. Abbreviations of words will become acceptable in published writing and not looked down upon as wrong. This could be a universal transition of language that could affect the world. Many of the changes to language are affected by how we communicate online.

This new global online movement the last few years has changed the way we communicate as well. Originally the only way to communicate online was through email. Now more people talk online using AIM, Facebook, IChat and so many other online sites. People now use cell phones for text messaging people, as often as calling them. This trend shows that in the future generations of people who grew up reliant on electronic writing as a communication device will continue to want to use these devices. The language people use online while chatting is now considered completely unacceptable but people who have lived with that kind of online language will view it as normal. So future generations will become accustom to this new kind of subscript, and acronyms will be understood universally. The future of online writing is influenced by the writing habits we have now online. Language is not the only thing that will be affected in the future but the education system itself will revolutionize.

Traditional education will undoubtedly change and become more dependent on online resources. In the last four years we have seen a great deal of change in online curriculum and even online degrees. People are currently able to take classes online from their home and earn graduate and post graduate degrees. These courses make it easy for people who need to work but still want an education. In 2004 a survey called “The Future of Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education” showed that 2.35 million students enrolled in online classes. Since that survey, new online colleges have been created and more and more courses are being offered. So far, this has mainly effected upper level education and not high school and elementary school but in the future it may change. High school classes are already using the internet for students to turn in papers and put assignments online as well. There are programs now that teach teachers how to be more effective with online courses and create a healthy online community environment. These online classes can be very similar to a regular class room environment. With web cameras all the students would be able see their instructor and still be able to have class discussion. This method of learning is better than a typical home school scenario because the kids are still able to interact with each other every day. This level of change to the educational system is not likely in the near future but is quite possible a few decades down the road. Even teachers know technology is in place for the future.

The same survey asked “what technology would most impact the delivery of online learning during the next five years” (Kim, Bonk). Teachers who took the survey had the option of picking one of 14 technologies. The results of the experiment showed “18 percent of respondents predicted that reusable content objects and wireless technologies would have the most significant impact.(Kim, Bonk)” This was what most teachers agreed on while some other options were: selected peer to peer collaboration, digital libraries, simulations and games, assistive technologies and digital portfolios. Very few though that e-books, virtual worlds and tablet PC’s would have a significant impact on education. These findings don’t show anything too conclusive but show teachers believe that education will most defiantly be changed by our technological advances. Many of these very examples would fit in a completely run online class where children are able to interact through their computers with their teacher and with each other. With more online education future generations will be more comfortable with the internet and use its resources more than print.

As our world turns to electronic writing, print becomes more obsolete. By 2010, the number of electronic pages published will surpass the number of printed pages. Writing has always been advancing since the beginning of time and now electronic writing is the new printing press of our time. It is an easy way for new and beginning writers to publish their work. It provides quick and easy access to any knowledge you would seek to know. Now there are online encyclopedias, dictionaries, books and anything else you could think of. “Today, it's estimated that 45 billion PDFs move over the Internet annually ... They represent at least 153 billion pages that move over the Internet annually. And that's not counting Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other files. Conservatively, there are more than 300 billion of these electronic pages that were once printed out in some form. By 2020, the number could rise to a trillion pages.” With all this new online writing it will be hard for print to keep up. Online writing is so inexpensive and time saving why wouldn’t people turn to it over print? Even the face of books will be changed in the future.

New inventions such as the Kindle allow books to be bought and downloaded wirelessly from the internet. The Kindle has a screen that is not as strenuous on the eyes as a normal computer screen, so readers can read for hours. It saves time for people with busy lifestyles and saves a lot of paper, making it eco friendly. On the flip side many believe that printed books cannot be replaced because of more tangible qualities. All books have a different feel to the pages and different smell when you open it up. Also reading of a screen instead of a page takes away from imagination and creativeness of the story. These aspects don’t allow readers to experience the story to its fullest causing people to stray from e-books. So even though print books may lose some business I doubt they will ever fully go away. Print is also looking for ways to integrate into the new digital age.

Smart paper will redefine how we view print. Things such as photographs, financial documents and tickets will have underlying identity to it allowing it to link to the internet, tracked and copyright protected. Phil Seder, a product manager at Digimarc, which develops digital watermarks said "Smart paper has an identity built within it." This new advancement will be able to directly link you to sights online on your laptop. It is very similar to having a bar code, like items at a store have, that identifies what they are. If you scan the mark in front of a web camera it will bring you to a specific web page. This will become exceedingly important as internet grows and online pages need to find ways to allow viewers to find their article.
Internet sites are not like normal pages out of a book. Writing online is able to incorporate pictures and video throughout the article. This is a very useful tool to draw in readers. The author of an article will have a more universal audience and needs to be able to write to where they can bring in viewers of all types and ages. Multimedia will be associated with writing and how well it is used will be a factor in a future writer’s success. Some writers and scholars will create audio and video files rather than typing a full article and just leave a few comments on their video and allow other viewers to comment. With this new focus on multimedia the substance of articles can become confusing and even misleading which creates a problem. Some people will pay too much attention to drawing in viewers and forget about what is most important, the content. It is important to be able to use multimedia but the most important aspect of the article is still the original content and whether or not it is accurate.

With the creation of so many new sights and writings online, people will need to be more wary about what sources are reliable and trustworthy. Many teachers in high school and college do not allow the use of online sources or limit how many are able to be used because of misleading pages on the internet. Many people need to have more trust in the internet if it is going to be able to expand and take the place of most print writing. People do not have a problem believing what they read in a printed book because not anyone can get their work published on paper but anyone can on the internet. If the internet grows and expands even more than it already has then it will be more difficult to tell what information is right and what is wrong. The internet puts its faith in people that overall the best material will rise to the top. Most material that does not offer a place to comment on it cannot be fully trusted because people are not able to question the rider out in the open.

It is uncertain what exactly will happen in the future but there is a strong indication that there will be many different changes to writing and language in general. The new generations will be more technically savvy than we are and continue the trends we have created. What we see as a drastic change to language will seem completely normal because of the changes that will be made in the education system. Students and teachers both will rely more on the internet and use it as a necessity rather than a tool. This will not only change in the world of education but also business. The change is already taking place in businesses and even in education but the change in language will take longer to occur. Technology will always be advancing and so will our writing along with it. Older generation might not be able to change with the new technology but considering how fast some of the changes have happened in the last ten years people should only be ready for more. The quickness and accessibility of the internet will allow us to learn quicker and become more intelligent people. As people become more intelligent so will the internet and the content it holds.