The Technology Of Writing

I found this week’s reading by Jay David Bolter very interesting and easy to read. Entitled ‘The Computer, Hypertext, And The History Of Writing’, it details how writing is a technology in itself, the development of writing and writing mechanisms across history, and the revolutionary nature of the computer in terms of writing.

Writing is not something that is typically thought as a ‘technology’. Instead, the things that display and facilitate writing, such as computers, laptops, and phones, are widely seen as technologies, and writing as more of an innate, regular thing.

The reading opens by contradicting this beliefs, with Bolter stating that “writing is a technology for collective memory, for preserving and passing on human experience…[it is a] sophisticated technology” that requires skill. Writing is a technology through its very etymological basis: the Greek root is ‘techne’, a “set of rules, system or method of making or doing, whether of the useful arts, or of the fine arts”. Therefore, writing itself is a technology, and writing in different forms requires different skills, and as Bolter says, “all writing demands method, the intention of the writer to arrange ideas systematically in a space for later examination by a reader”.

The reading details how these brand of technologies gradually become internalized by its user and are eventually ‘second-nature’, and in terms of writing, it is often hard to detach from the skill. Although we aren’t writing 24/7, our “technical relationship to the writing space is always with us”. Through avenues such as speech and reading, we are still practicing and utilising our writing skills.

Bolter states that “writing is certainly not innate”, and this is obvious by the fact that we must be actively taught how to write, and the specific and strict guidelines to do so.

Bolter identifies ‘economies of writing’, the materials, techniques, and uses involved, and how they have developed and adapted across time. Beginning historically with stone and papyrus, humans have developed the likes of the printing press and the type writing.

Word processing has revolutionised the technology of writing, and the ole pen and paper is slowly and gradually becoming obsolete, but this will be a very long process.

Bolter identifies hypertextual electronic writing as a “thorough rewriting of the writing space”, and a technology that includes the best components of previous techniques, including the idea of rapid change from the wax tablet, and  the typewriter’s keyboard, discrete selection of alphabetic elements, and a machine-like uniformity.

In great contrast to previous technologies, computing does not allow a direct connection between the reader and the words, with these words being stored as electronic thingos that must be translated by a machine. I think this is one of the reasons why so many people are averse to the idea of e-readers, as it no longer feels like you’re actually holding a book in your hands. There is now a middleman of sorts between the reader and the words.

If writing itself is a technology, then it is a skill that needs to be honed and constantly practiced. Writing for our blogs is an entirely different skill than writing an essay, and we have to be able to adapt these skills to fit this new means for publishing our work.

Our blogs in themselves are networks, we can create links to other blogs or to anywhere else on the internet, and it takes skillful writing to effectively and fully utilise these newfound abilities regarding hypertext.