It didn’t really hit me how much technology has affected our society until I began looking at it through a literary perspective. As a writer myself, I have become so dependent on technology to write. In the “Technoculture” article it states, “’Technoculture’ in literature can also describe a new proximity between the author and technology.” I know they were describing it more in the sense of how technology appears in literature, but technology has taken over the way authors write. The most obvious example is the writer’s main writing tool. Yes, there’s still pen and paper, but most writers use a computer, even if it’s only for the final draft of their work (which must be typed to be even read by an agent). The Internet has also taken the place of a library as a writer’s main source of information for research. It’s certainly more accessible and contains more readily-available information than your local library.
E-books are also slowly taking over. Basically they are electronic versions of books that can be read on personal computers or hand-held devices. A big question in the publishing industry is: will e-books take over in the future? It’s certainly a possibility. Every year new technology comes out and personal electronic devices are extremely popular. E-books have their positive side—they’re eco-friendly and much easier to distribute and manufacture. Already schools are replacing textbooks with laptops (my high school did this the year after I left). Perhaps some day in the future we’ll no longer need books; we’ll simply hook ourselves up to programs like in The Matrix and learn that way.
The point is that technology is slowly taking over and it’s affecting people more than they think. It’s not just doctors and engineers who are becoming dependent on new technology, but we writers too are letting it run our lives. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s definitely something to be aware of.
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