Although technology has allowed the emergence of new writing platforms, I don't believe that writing is a brand new experience. I think that the inclusion of these new technologies has, if anything, expanded on what it means to write. The idea of conveying ideas through written text is still the overall purpose behind writing. Although Plato claims that writing is inhuman because it creates a consciousness outside of the body, I would disagree. I think that writing has evolved to feel natural to humans. The medium through which we convey our thoughts is what has changed.
The inclusion of the internet and digital media has definitely impacted the way in which we view written text. For example, before digital media, texts were distributed in two-dimensional paper form. Now a message can be represented digitally in a plethora of ways, such as video, animations, word documents, excel spread sheets, and websites.
One thing that has definitely grown through the inclusion of new technologies in writing is the ability to reach audiences. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and even online news sites, give the author the ability to be read by audiences that previously would never have access to them. This allows for ideas to spread so much more quickly than they would have before. Sites like Amazon that offer novelists self-publishing are also expanding audiences. Take for example, the book series Fifty Shades of Grey. The author of the best-selling series began writing Fifty Shades on a blog site as Twilight Fan Fiction, where it gained notoriety fairly quickly. She then took to Amazon to publish the books as eBooks, which turned into her being noticed by actual publishers, which turned into a large-scale Hollywood movie. Without the internet's ability to reach a larger audience than simple text media, I think that it is safe to say that that series would not have become as large of a hit as they did.
Morgan Wren
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