Through The Wire: The Future of Electronic Writing

Writing has been around for thousands of years, from the fourth millennium, when cavemen would write on cave walls to the Egyptian hieroglyphics to modern day. Like many things in life writing started out as a seed and grew and evolved over centuries to what it’s today. While, the progress of print writing has seemed to exponentially slow down, younger sister, electronic writing is booming internationally from writing online to cell phone texting. Michael Dashkin recently wrote an article that gives an avid definition to electronic writing. So what’s the future for this new style of writing? Electronic writing will continue to take monumental steps forward, but print writing will remain coexistent solely for its advantages in books.

The verities of electronic writing are more advantageous than those of print writing. Print writing is very simple one sits down with their pen and paper and writes. While, electronic writing has so many different forms such as blogging, wikis, electronic journals, etc. Electronic writing is advantageous over print writing in that teachers are able to track what there students are writing and make sure their students are not just plagiarizing their work. If electronic writing didn’t exist than websites such as turnitin.com would be pointless and relatively non-existent. Furthermore in writing for class, writing electronically assists teachers, and students, that have a hard time writing legibly. Many teachers have a hard time reading students work and usually the students suffer because teachers give students a zero when that occurs. So, writing on the computer gives students an easier way to get their ideas on paper and also saves teachers the hard work and time dedicated to deciphering student handwriting.

Further the ways in which electronic writing has injected writing with a fresh new life can be seen in an article titled “WRITING ELECTRONICALLY: The Effects of Computers on Traditional Writing” in which author Sharmila Ferris claims, “The development of symbolic language parallels the development of human society and culture. The ability to communicate orally, using symbols to convey both concrete and abstract information, distinguishes the human race. Yet, before the development of a means to record language, communication was limited by individual capacities for memory and cognition.” Further one can see from Ferris’s quote that electronic writing is the future for the current generation, while print, who’s time may be running thin, is of the past and is merely outdated.

The future of electronic writing looks to be headed in the direction of academic uses, but social networking and electronic communication are becoming bigger parts of daily activities for human beings, then they have ever been before. Social networking is a huge modern day craze. It ranges from teens talking with friends to companies that try to promote themselves. Social networks are such flexible tools, that they can, as mentioned employ, be used for a verity of purposes. In an article titled “High Growth Forecasted for the Social Networking: Competitive Differentiation Strategies” the author exclaims that with increases in the amount of social networking being used today, the ability of a social network to prevail over its competition will be based on its characteristics that are not shared by others. Also, the author points out with social networks being used for a plethora of uses, it would be advantages to have them specialize in specific field. For example, a social network solely dedicated to companies that want to promote themselves.

Text messaging and other forms of electronic communication have very much “leap frogged” their print opponents. E-mails have in themselves become more popular than mail. Many companies who used to send out bills to their customers in the mail now switched to allowing their customers to make payments online because there is such a strong preference for electronics over traditional mail. None the less text messaging from cell phones is at an all time high, not only do teens text, but also adults have been known to do their fair share of texting. A recent article titled “ text messaging and e-mail are more popular than traditional writing in Finland” shows that other areas of the world have grown accustomed to these new technologies. What’s significant about this statement is that some of these countries may not be as technologically advanced as the United States yet; they still prefer to use electronic forms of writing more often then traditional print.

Although, print writing was never part of many daily lives, except for those who are writers, electronic writing has become a staple for many people, even for those who are not writers. Many jobs now involve some sort of electronic writing, be it sending e-mails or typing down some notes for a research paper. So, when employers are looking for possible employees being an effective electronic writer makes one really stand out in the pile of applications. It’s like a neon sign that reads, Hey! Hire me! You wont go wrong! A Business Wire article took a further look at this and claimed that, “A recent survey of America's top businesses reveals that being able to write well is essential for success, especially in industries that will have the greatest growth in the future. The report from the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges shows that poorly written job applications can be the kiss of death”. The article points out that being able to write well print or electronically, is vital. While the article makes a valid point with writing being essential it fails to address that fact that being able to write electronically can be helpful in more than just writing because, one who can write electronically has an understanding in modern technologies and that can be helpful in the workplace, writing well in print doesn’t give one that same advantage.

Along the same lines as above, electronic writing can also be used to further advance ones career. Two University of Michigan faculty members wrote an observation about their news major students. They observed that students who were exposed to electronic software and forms of electronic writing during their schooling, had an easier time developing their careers then those who were void of the electronic training. I feel the above observation by the two faculty members stands true because the students who have the training with technology and electronic writing have more options of getting their work spread and more likely of having major newspapers and stations finding their work and publishing it. Those who write print have a very limited amount of resources at their expense to spread their work around.

More or less, teens that write electronically, don’t consider what they are doing “writing”, which makes writing more of a personal activity rather than an assignment for school. Being a teen myself, the above statement is absolutely true. When I send a text to from my cell phone to a friend or write on someone’s “wall” on facebook, it never fazes me that what I’m doing is actually writing. The reason for this is because writing electronically is more of an interactive style of writing. There is much more involved in writing electronically than there is in print. The verity keeps the ever-changing teenage psyche from getting bored.

A recent article titled, “Teens do not consider a lot of their electronic texts as writing” mentions that “Teens are utilitarian in their approach to technology and writing, using both computers and longhand depending on circumstances. Their use of computers for school and personal writing is often tied to the convenience of being able to edit easily”. While the above statement would lead teachers to promote more electronic writing in their classes, some claim that the informal style of writing online seeps into the students work and makes their writing sloppy and unprofessional. The survey though claimed “63% of teens say using computers to write makes no difference in the quality of the writing they produce”. It seems that teachers see 37% as too high of a percentage of students using informal language.

Furthermore, electronic writing is being progressed mostly by the teens that use it for their personal entertainment. The abundance of teens that use electronic writing for their own pleasures greatly outnumbers the teens that write solely for school. This, as mentioned earlier, makes writing more personal and pleasurable not just a writing assignment for English class, that teens dread. Amanda Lenhart recently wrote, “…teens described their new environment. To them, email is increasingly seen as a tool for communicating with “adults” such as teachers, institutions like schools, and as a way to convey lengthy and detailed information to large groups. Meanwhile, IM is used for everyday conversations with multiple friends that range from casual to more serious and private exchanges…It is also used as a place of personal expression. Through buddy icons or other customization of the look and feel of IM communications, teens can express and differentiate themselves”. The jest of Lenhart’s article is that electronic writing brings so much more than just writing to peoples, specfically teens, lives.

Keeping to the theme of teens and electronic writing, modern day social medias are being popularized by teens specifically, adults may use these tools, but nothing compares to the countless hours teens spend on sites such as facebook and myspace and using tools such as AIM. A recent survey, “Teens and Social Media”, found that “ The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media”. What’s so significant about this is that this use of social media is actually electronic writing, but the ability to do so much online rather than just writing blinds teens from the fact that they are actually writing. Ultimately, in looking at these last few articles and by personal experience, writing electronically is really much more than just writing.

So far we’ve only looked at onside of the story, print writing, even with the monumental progress in electronic writing, will continue to coexist because of its ease and portability. For example, books will never fully be diminished because it’s so easy to read a book and also, from personal experiences, the ability to turn a page really gives one a feeling of accomplishment. When reading a book online, one losses that feeling of turning a page. Also, a book is extremely portable. One can take it on a plane, on a car trip, and so on. While one can take lap tops on a plane or in car trips, most people who use computers use desktop computers and also for those who do use lap tops they need to be able to access the internet to read books online and the internet isn’t always available on a plane or on trip. Further, say one has a lap top and can access the internet, the strain, from looking at a screen for a prolonged period of time, on the eyes is so frustrating that most people wouldn’t be willing to spend long periods of time reading online.

Increasingly, use of electronic has hindered peoples forms of writing as mentioned by Mardziah Hayati Abdullah in an ERIC Digest article, in which he claims that people can get away with writing “child-like” online, but this style of writing is not excepted when writing formally. With that said, books are at the core of why print writing will remain co existent with the powerhouse form of electronic writing.

In conclusion, electronic writings future will be aimed towards the younger generation of writers and will continue to flourish especially in the fields of social medias. Yet, electronic writing will not be able to fully encapsulate the field of writing for the ease of use of books will keep print writing around and allow it to coexist.