Over the last week or so I've thought a lot about how technology has effected me as a writer. For the first few days I wasn't really making much of a correlation. So I decided to call my parents to ask them about a computer I had when I was a kid. I remembered playing word games and number puzzles on my computer. I explained to my mom that I had to write a memoir for my media class. It was at this time my phone vibrated. I put her on speaker phone so I could check my alerts. At this very moment it hit me, I am talking to my mom, receiving an email from a friend in New York, texting my roommate who is in St Louis for a funeral, and talking on AIM about a party later that night. I'm doing all this on my Blackberry. I began to realize that technology effects my life and my writing so much that I, as I'm sure many others do, take it for granted. With so many convenient forms of communication resting in one's palm in the form of an iPhone, Blackberry, or Sidekick, one fails to see them for what they truly represent. We almost overlook the fact that the word email literally means “electronic mail.” It serves the same purpose as traditional mail but has advantages we take for granted, such as, instant delivery and conservation of paper. More on this later, back to the computer. It was a Commodore-64. The release date in America was August of 1982. The Commodore-64 was my first Christmas present. I was six months old. I grew up with computers and in the same respect, computers grew up with me. So let's start at the beginning.
The Commodore-64:
I don't remember a whole lot of specifics, I was a toddler, but I do remember playing puzzle games to learn my alphabet and numbers. In fact, I recall only having two games that were not inherently educational, a karate game and a skiing game. I can vaguely picture the games in my head. It is hard to tell really how they effected my writing, but they definitely effected my reading. I began reading books sometime around 3 years old. Depending on who you ask in my family it's either a little before 3 or 4. I obviously didn't realize it back then, but I am sure now that those games had an effect on my ability to read at a very early age. Another oddity I remember is speaking in complete sentences like Charles Wallace in A Wrinkle in Time. This was again partly in response to growing up playing grammar games and partly because my mom did not allow me to talk like other kids. While my friends were saying things like, “Mommy. Cookie,” I was forced to say, “Mother, may I have a cookie,” or I didn't get a cookie. This was all fine and good before when I entered kindergarten, but I soon realized that the other kids in class didn't talk like me. In fact I had this habit of talking like that until I was in 4th or 5th grade. Think Sheldon on “Big Bang Theory.” I used to even correct the grammar of kids in class just like he corrects his roommates. I honestly realized one day that I even annoyed myself. As I grow older, I sometimes miss this habit because now I have the mouth of a high school dropout sailor. Oh the joys of growing older.
Oregon Trail/Wheel of Fortune:
These games became really important to me around third grade. It was about this time that we started getting computer lab time for about 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every kid who went to elementary school in the 80's remembers Oregon Trail and Wheel of Fortune on the Mac's that popped up in school computer labs with such frequency that it seemed to be government mandated. I think the education system got one over on us with these two games. It felt so good to be out of class in the mythical computer lab playing "games." What is Wheel of Fortune other than a more elaborate hangman. It taught us consonants, vowels, word recognition, etc. Oregon Trail had effected me personally in a way that I'm not sure it really hit my fellow students. Everybody else just wanted to win. I was more concerned with the story. Each time I played, it was a new story. I took pride in naming my characters and choosing my occupation. I liked the variation. I wasn't mad when characters died. I instead reveled in the act of writing their epitaphs. I began to see stories in a non-linear way. Oregon Trail became my opportunity to see just how many times I could rewrite the story of the travel weary pioneers and I relished each and every opportunity.
Books:
Until I began reading for this class a few weeks ago, I never really thought of books as technology. I now understand that books are a combination of technologies. In fact when it comes to my relationship to technology as a writer, books will always be first and foremost on my list. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. When my mom was finishing college, I would steal my her textbooks. This continued when she first became a teacher. I devoured these books by the dozens. She would catch me in the wee hours under my covers with a flashlight reading her books. There were no bounds to my desire to read. In most cases, I wasn't even concerned about the contents of the books I read, as long as I had a book to read. Between 5th grade and 8th grade, I would honestly say that I read an average of 2-3 books a week (100-150 a year), not including the books I was assigned in school. Around 7th or 8th, grade when all my friends began using AOL and AIM, I took a hiatus from computers. I literally used my computer for two things: burning Cd's and typing papers until well after high school. In fact I pretty much spent the years from 12 until 22 becoming completely computer illiterate. A copy of a book that can be physically held and carried with me throughout my day will always and forever be my favorite technology related to reading and writing. I do not foresee a time when this will change for me, ever.
Laptop:
This section covers my relationship to computers over the last few years. I have become computer literate in the last few years. I only really started paying attention to computers because I went on tour with AmongTheLast shortly after I turned 23. This one event rekindled my computer connection based on one social networking site and its apparent necessity if I was to be on the road – Myspace. I never thought I would have a Myspace. Why would I? I still didn't even use AIM. I didn't have an email address. My friends convinced me that this site would make keeping in touch with everyone back home a breeze. The night before we left, I registered a hotmail account and made myself a Myspace. Over the course of that summer Myspace would change how I viewed communication. Of course this was almost five years ago, and at times it seems as if Myspace is overrun with teens who treat it like the high school cafeteria. When I first started on Myspace it really did help me keep up with everything going on back home. The interface was amazing. It had everything. I could send emails to individual friends or write bulletins to share news with all my friends at once. Mostly we used Myspace as a tool to promote the band on the road. By the time I went on tour with The A-Game, 2 years later, we were using Myspace to maintain a tour blog complete with pictures and videos. As I get older, I tend to spend less time on Myspace. Although I consider it juvenile at times, I appreciate the site reintroducing me to my computer. I still check it everyday, but mainly I use it to maintain contact with people who live out of state or some significant distance away. Now I can't live without my computer. I used to do most of my writing in various notebooks or journals. After losing one that I carried with me for about two years, I began using my computer as a source to store my thoughts. The computer has some amazing advantages to pen and paper. It can email which replaces mail. It can instant message which replaces a telegram, phone call, or text message (in all actuality, you can send a text message to a phone using a computer). It can word process which replaces a copy editor. It has a keyboard which replaces a typewriter. In the same space as one average photography book, a laptop can carry around hundreds of eBooks.
Blackberry:
The one device effecting my life more than anything write now would be my Blackberry. I don't know anyone with a smartphone that would disagree. Even when I began using my computer again, I still didn't use it primarily as a tool for communication. Quite simply because it wasn't always around. Myspace did open the door for me to see advantages in new forms of communication, but smartphones are different. Unlike a laptop, my phone fits in my pocket and is by my side 24 hours of the day. I seriously mean that. It lays on or under my pillow when I sleep. I have friends whose Sidekicks are so ever-present they could be mistaken for androids. I never really thought about it until this assignment, but my Blackberry is the most important tool in my writing arsenal. I have applications for MyspaceMobile, Twitterberry, AIM, and BBM. I also have an inbox that receives my emails, texts, and media messages. The home screen for my browser is my blog for class. I also have an 8 gigabyte memory card. In my media folder I have only one Cd and eight audiobooks. My Blackberry is changing the way I approach communication as a whole. It has all the functionality of my computer, including a word processor, and fits in my pocket.
Final Thoughts:
It is obvious to me that early on technology helped to speed my development as both a writer and a reader. As time has passed, I believe technology's effects have become more varied. I believe that while technology has made communication more convenient, it has also lead people to take communication for granted. There is still, in my opinion, a deeper connection associated with a hand written letter than with an email. Yes email may have the advantage of speedy delivery, but what are you really sending? There is no tangible physical record. Is your grandparents box of love letters gong to be replaced with a Cd collection of digital files? For some reason this image lacks the romance the image an old box of letters brings to mind. I also feel that on top of a lack of appreciation, technology has made people lazy. I personally feel that communication such as texting and instant messaging has made me develop bad habits as far as grammar and punctuation. It has also effected the way I speak, my voice. Communication has become more about what I say not how I say it. Careful word planning no longer seems of importance. We aren't waiting days for a letter to be delivered, followed by more time waiting for a response. We are experiencing instant gratification of our every thought and desire. It is this instant gratification which has led to my personal lack of care for how I say things in recent years. I believe that technology is a tool for progress. I believe that as such it creates new opportunity and learning experience. I still think, however, one must look to the past to understand the future. For me no matter how useful I find my laptop or Blackberry to be, books will remain my most prized of all the writing technologies I have encountered.
-molina
Relevant Links:
Funny Explanation of Oregon Trail (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GH0-hr1u_k)
Link to A-Game Tour Blog (blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=38558582&blogID=280799144)
Free eBooks (www.ebooksonus.com)
Andy Hull about Right Away, Great Captain! - In reference to this class I have read this blog and listened to the album it refers to a few times, check out the third paragragh especially. (blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=6121768&blogID=314171859)
