INTRODUCTION
Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading & Writing
Chapter 1
In today’s digital generation, technology is changing the spaces of reading and writing as we speak, affecting natural human interaction processes and the way in which we regard written text itself. According to Bolter, “[t]his virtual or conceptual writing space forms a continuum with the material space of writing: it is both a reflection of contemporary materials and techniques and an expression of our culture’s ambitions for its writing” (2001, p. 16). Following the trend of remediation, digital text claims to do a better job than its predecessor printed text, by promising greater efficiency and ease of use (p. 19).
New technologies bring both gains and losses, and as mentioned, are reflective of a cultural shift occurring simultaneously. With the internet, communication has improved on a global scale, and academic information has become readily accessible to the general public. Ideas can be easily shared and published, with writing processors enabling writers to copy, compare, and discard text with the touch of a few buttons (Bolter, 2001, p. 13). In contrast, however, the rapid advancement of technology, has resulted in equipment and software becoming outdated quickly, creating high learning curves and need for adaptability. Online publishing requires little to no screening also, resulting in the what Engell and O’Donell refer to as the ‘Dissemination of Trash’, where online technology perpetuates the circulation and distribution of fake, useless, and baseless information (1999).
Digital writing technology has not entirely replaced printed text, but currently serves to supplement and transform it; one of its most unique features is the introduction of hypermedia, which is arguably the greatest factor to the Internet’s success. First coined ‘Hypertext’ in the 1960s by Theodore Nelson (1965 as cited in Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p. 4), and now referred to as ‘Hypermedia’ due to its inclusion of video, graphics, animation, and audio, Hypermedia serves as a navigational tool through which Internet users are able to access and explore the virtual space that is the web. Readers have become active users that can interact with what they read and see, facilitating the comparison of visual objects, and exponentially increasing the speed and power of electronic searching. Additionally, whereas the printed book favoured linear writing, the computer, through the internet and hypermedia makes associative linking easier (Bolter, 2001, p. 17).
The fluidity afforded by hypermedia and multidirectional text emulates the human stream of consciousness, where “the links constitute a path through a virtual space and the reader becomes a visitor or traveler in that space” (Bolter, 2001, p. 21). At the same time, however, it brings with it concerns that did not exist with past text technologies; the greatest of which is the notion of the digital footprint . Digital footprints refer to the information and data generated by people through purposive action or passive recording when they go online (Thatcher, 2014). Particularly with children and adolescents using social media and the internet, this traceable data can make Internet usage a double-edged sword in terms of positive and negative social consequences (Yan, 2005, p. 385 as cited in Buchanan, Southgate, Smith, Murray, & Noble, 2017, p. 277). One’s history and pattern of internet usage ends up forming one’s online identity and can potentially affect future careers and job prospects in a worst-case scenario (Buchanan et al., 2017, p. 277).
