Week 14 Journal

Before the age of advanced technology, the title of a writer was only given to a select group of individuals who were published, professional, and who made a living off of their writing. However, times have changed and new innovations in technology are continuously made, making the act of writing not only more accessible, but also more common in doing so. With the adoption of computers, smartphones, tablets and other communication devices, the people are now presented with many options to get their word out, if they so chose to. In addition to the increase in technology ownership, social networking sites have been on the incline as well and have granted users with yet another means of communicating their thoughts to the public, making them, in a sense, writers. Although a great majority of these people do not professionally publish their writing for an income, they do indeed perform the act of writing and are therefore considered writers regardless of the reach of their words or the content that they are producing. The emergence of digital technologies and Web 2.0 have allowed for countless methods of composing works of all sorts as well as venues to display their writing so that it is easily accessible for the general public. To be a writer in the 21st century, in my opinion, does not mean as much as being considered a writer before the age of advanced technology and the internet. This is primarily because it so much easier to not only compose, but also to get the word out and to more people than we can even imagine. Now, anyone who writes is basically a writer, whereas back then it was only those select individuals who possessed superior writing ability and worked hard to publish a book or other text based piece. I feel that the content of the fewer writers in the pre-technological age was more respectable and of higher quality as composed to the ever increasing mass of individuals who publish anything they please (regardless of its quality) and often times do not put as much thought into their writing because it is easy to get it out and into the public. I feel that although these new technologies have made the process of writing and publication easier, the standard of writing has been lowered because of this ease. These new methods of composing have introduced a new, lower standard of what writing and what writers are, changing the field a great deal.