The End

Gone are the days when writing was just writing, when being a writer truly meant something; when writing stood for a single thing. It was a simple matter, before: someone would ask what your job was, you told them that you were a writer, they would nod their head in understanding, and you'd both go on your merry ways. Now, when someone uses the word, I'm not sure whether to be respectful or laugh in the person's face! The reason for this is, of course, the advent of electronic writing.

What, exactly, is electronic writing? The common images associated with the topic include blogs and wikis. Some, however, also assert that other facets of the World Wide Web constitute the title of writing, such as emails, instant-messaging, and message boards.

Any time a new idea such as this is submitted to the vast corridors of the Internet, all it takes is a few people to catch on to it before it becomes the norm; growth and popularity is exponential when it comes to Internet content. No one ever thought blogging would become as big as it is today, and yet it's become this giant force that's still growing. When people think about the future of electronic writing, then, and dismiss its possible effects the medium as a whole, perhaps they should think twice. For it will have a multitude of effects, many of which will radically change the nature of the institution as we know it.

Something that's already beginning to happen, and will only increase in prevalence, is the emergence of an entirely new Internet-vocabulary of Internet fads and memes that spread and expand. There is already an entire site devoted to documenting this “Net lingo”, and it is not the only one of its kind, by far.

More and more people are using this “language”, which is generally more casual, quick, abbreviated, and often not grammatically correct. The phrase “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” does not exactly apply here; these people ARE the Romans. And the amount of Romans is steadily increasing; as of February, there were 112.8 million blogs on the Web – not counting non-English-speaking ones. The amount of people who become attracted to writing in this vernacular will continue to increase, and it's not unreasonable to think that such a style could become the normal way one writes on the Internet.

As this vocabulary comes about, the “real” world's language will begin to adapt terms from it and will integrate with it until, eventually, there will be much less of a gap between the two than there are now. It is unreasonable to imagine that people will begin using “lol” in place of real laughter(though a Pew Internet study showed that 38% of students have used it in their writing and 25% have used emoticons); however, it is less far-fetched for more practical or humorous phrases to be used, perhaps even on television. Obviously, in places where there are no computers or Internet-access, this change won't occur until circumstances allow it to.

Such changes to language, however, along with the ever-increasing amount of writing done online, may lead to a decline in the standard medium of print, and eventually its entire demise. Everyone always talks about how the Internet generation Web-users like to jump from page to page very quickly, usually while chatting to a friend, listening to music, and maybe even writing an essay, and it's true.

This tendency is not strictly limited to the youth and their habits, however; many adults do the exact same thing, they just do it on a more professional level. Instead of chatting, they're checking the DOW. Instead of writing an essay, they're writing a letter to a business associate. And this behavior, exhibited by the vast majority of Internet users, could very well be changing our brains. As the page states, "experienced Internet users showed double the activity in areas of the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning" and this is clearly a good thing, and an undeniable benefit to the lives of those people, even outside of technological environments.

However, it also mentions the sharp increase in Attention Deficit Disorder that arises, giving what appears to be a double-edged sword. A BBC article states it best: “Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.” This tendency to twitter around without staying on one subject for long makes formerly common tasks, such as reading a newspaper, into a chore - and the fact that newspapers are slowly dying off prove it.

Even back in 2006, the Washington Post was getting rid of 70 staff members, and many newspapers have long since trimmed their margins to cut costs that aren't being covered by subscriptions. Outside observers - those who are not part of the system – are always beneficial when it comes to pointing out problems that those on the "inside" may not have seen; this is just another reason for why we all should be worried.

This may in turn lead to the destruction of more “intelligent” forms of writing; online writing is prone to being more casual, and drawing a line at what is acceptable or not, especially in an environment that is constantly evolving, is arbitrary and could well be a slippery slope to a degradation of writing as a whole. As the vernacular spreads, those that do not adapt will die out, and previously popular forms of writing will go extinct. What is at risk is an entire form of writing, one that has existed relatively unchanged in style for hundreds of years.

The differences between the two forms of writing – that is, electronic and print – are vast. Online or electronic writing is much more casual, possibly because the Internet is just a less formal place than the real world. Whatever the reason behind it is, a blog post done about a news story will seem much closer to a conversational tone than a newspaper article will. Besides this, the very nature of the Web takes some of the standard “rules” of writing and throws them out the window. One of the biggest things an author or journalist has to look our for when they begin their process is their target audience.

However, doing such a thing – writing with a select group in mind – is nearly impossible on the Net. It's important to remember what the first two “w”s stand for in a URL address; they stand for World Wide. Anything that is put up onto a website can be read and seen by anyone, regardless of who the author meant it to be for. This definitely changes how people go about writing.

However, blogs are by no means the only form of electronic writing. Those mentioned before - email, instant-messaging, et cetera - also hold a place in the discussion. The same Pew Internet research study cited earlier found that 85% of teenagers communicate electronically, through texting, email, and social sites, and these teens "acknowledge that the informal styles of writing that mark the use of these text-based technologies for many teens do occasionally filter into their school work." While this kind of word-based interaction is nice for developing the ability to communicate online, many teens end up inadvertently putting these ungrammatical, overly casual, and unformatted styles into their regular school or work projects. From that same study, 50% of them (that's half) said they do just that! As time goes on, it's very easy for teachers and professors to become more lenient on these slips, because the whole style is becoming more and more main-stream.

As the standards of what constitutes writing drop, not only does the profession lose credibility, but the informal styles receive undue credit and gets less flack, when there should be some level of alarm at the integration of a system that is vastly different than the one it wishes to merge with.

If print does go the way of the dinosaurs, however, there will most certainly be some benefits. Let's face it – handwriting is clumsy, inefficient, and crude. In a world where electronic writing is the only option, technology will exist that makes writing manually seem absurd. Ask any teacher whether they would prefer a student handwrite a paper, or bring in a printed-out copy, and I guarantee that nine out of ten of them would desire the latter. Type is uniform, easy to read, neat, doesn't smudge, and is much faster.

Some may say that being able to have complete control over what you write allows for more freedom – for example, the ability to draw diagrams while taking notes, or have arrows pointing to different sections. And frankly, at this time, they're right. Handwriting does have these advantages, perks that would make its death undesirable. However, they are not thinking outside of the box or into the future. Who knows exactly what kinds of technology will be invented that could change this?

Imagine a machine which allows the user to “think” words into their computer, as well as add in any flairs that they wished to have; would handwriting really stick around? Imagine what such a technological marvel would do to the world of writing! Surely the amount of authors would increase dramatically, and while newspapers would be affected to a much lesser degree, but they already have enough problems of their own to deal with. Books and novels are the one remaining vestige of print's former monopoly on writing, and the creation of such a device would be devastating.

We also can't forget that people will usually continue to do what makes them money, even if it's no longer viable. When it comes to writing, there is a huge gap between the pay rates in print and online. Getting below $.25/word in print is relatively unheard of, but for a blogger it would be incredibly generous. In fact, writers for newspapers and magazines seem to get paid anywhere between five to one-hundred times more than bloggers, and this is probably fair. It's a lot easier to write a blog than submit a newspaper article, not counting how much more profitable print as a medium is than the Web(at least for now). Until the two sides of this gaping chasm are brought closer together, print will probably continue to persist.

You know, I don't know what tomorrow will bring in terms of my breakfast, let alone the future of an entire medium. All anyone can do is speculate. Guess. Look at some tests, some group studies, and take a bet. What I do know, however, is that the world of writing has already changed vastly from what it was when I was a kid. I know it shows no signs of stopping. I know that people are fundamentally changing the ways in which they think about the topic, and how they approach it - both as a contributor and as a reader. And what I know the most is that to expect things to stay the same, or close to it, is at best near-sighted, and at worst, foolish. For the Internet never stays the same – it is always moving, always changing, and so, too, will be electronic writing.