Surprise! The Written Word Is Alive and Well - Internet users favor writing as method of communication - Brief Article

They didn't give the written word a chance to survive in the late 20th century. The new multimedia, digital world of the future was supposed to include plenty of dazzling images and sounds whose visual and aural environment didn't need the out-of-fashion written word. Words on paper were obsolete. Throw out all your books. The new computer-video world didn't need them anymore.

How wrong could the soothsayers be? The written word is not only alive and well, but dominating the new media with a vengeance. Never in history have so many people written so much. Billions of words are written down each day by people with access to the Internet. Millions of pages of paper are printed each day by those who want a permanent keepsake of what flashes across their computer screens.

People sit for hours reading words on their computer screens. They read e-mail messages. They read newspaper and magazine articles. They read how-to manuals, medical journals, catalogues, and advertisements. They read about their favorite movies, actors, and musicians. They find whatever they are looking for in electronic stores and auctions. They read about new worlds and old passions. They read what search engines throw out at them on every conceivable subject. The written word may be supplemented with fantastic images and audio segments, but it is the written word that is dominant. It is the written word that runs the current communication revolution.

E-mail to the forefront

When doomsayers predicted the end of the written word, they apparently were thinking too much about television and not enough about the Internet. They saw that experiments asking consumers to "read" text on the TV screen were dismal failures. No one, it seemed, wanted to sit and read written words on a TV monitor. Then computers became the modern way to communicate. People began getting messages through e-mail and began favoring e-mail over phone calls. Unlike the phone call, an e-mail message does not interrupt life's flow. It can be answered at any time--even when the sender is asleep or unavailable.

E-mail correspondence became a convenient way to keep in touch with friends, acquaintances, people we hadn't seen for decades, people just met. The written message began to be the message of choice. You could write messages when you felt like writing them and you could make them as long or as short as you wanted. The recipient could read the message carefully or scroll through it rapidly without hurting your feelings. Without pen and paper, people started writing again. It is estimated that, in the 21st century, more people will correspond through e-mail than by the telephone.

Some say the writing level on the Internet seems hopelessly juvenile, that the mauling of language and linguistics is appalling. We will end up a nation of very poor writers who excuse our illiteracy by arguing that electronic communication doesn't need the finesse and eloquence of written words on paper. It is true that anyone visiting a chat room on the Internet will find plenty of evidence to support that point of view.

But others might disagree. It is possible that the more people use the written word, the more skillful they will become at writing. The more they write, the more they will learn to appreciate the well-turned phrase, the arresting metaphor, the moving sentence. They will learn how to type and write faster and with more clarity. They will once again understand the power of the written word and its influence over people. They might even sit back, look at the screen, and marvel at the beauty of language.

Taking charge again

Calling up information or messages on a computer screen puts the individual back in control. No fast-moving, impossible-to-understand TV news broadcast or electronic images that flash by in seconds. When you are in charge, you can linger over a delectable phrase or concept. You can re-read the information at your own pace. You can contemplate a response in the fullness of time. You can decide what to read and when to read it. It has restored power to the consumer.

The great surprise of these last few years of the 20th century is how much the great communications revolution has restored the ability of a single anonymous mind to pursue knowledge, rummage through the vast resources of civilization, and ferret out subjects usually reserved for scholars and collectors. Any written word typed into an Internet search engine can yield all kinds of other written words on obscure or popular subjects. You can search every conceivable publication available, roam through the great museums and libraries of the world, explore the databanks of governments and foundations, and bring all of the world's knowledge to your computer, courtesy of the written word.

So, like the deaths of Mark Twain and God, the death of the written word has been greatly exaggerated. It seems that the written word is not only here to stay, but has become our gateway to knowledge and entertainment in ways Johannes Gutenberg, who invented printing from moveable type, never imagined. No matter what joys or terror new technology has for us in the future, the old-fashioned written word will be there to witness, explain, explore, and help us understand who we were, who we are, and who we hope to be.