Paper 1

Writing in the Digital Age:
The Evolution or De-evolution of the English Word?

Take a good look back at the history of writing, specifically at the
English language (seeing as it is the one we are discussing). English has gone through several different forms, and if any of us were to look at the first “English” texts today, it is unlikely that anyone in this class would understand them. Today, we are on the eve of another new form of the English language – call it “Simplified English”, if you like. The computer era has brought about a need for condensed data, compressed data. Fitting as much information in as little space possible. But is this “txting” truly the direction of human writing? Or is this evidence of the human race becoming less intelligent? Are these abbreviations really writing? Or are they more closely associated with speech? These are the issues which affect writing and the internet age today, and will influence the direction in which human communication goes forward.
When I was in primary school, I attended grammar classes like the rest of the class. Teachers instructed the basic rules of punctuation, capitalization, and the elements of grammar. High school came next – and my English teachers prepared me to become an intelligent writer. The papers given were not only made to discuss the topic at hand, they were also made to fine tune grammar, and clean up anything I hadn’t bothered to catch on to yet.
For me, the most vivid memories of writing these papers in high school were of my mother correcting them. My mother was a legal secretary, and so everything submitted to her clients and to the courts had to be in absolutely perfect English – no errors in spelling or punctuation. As a result, my papers were also expected to be of that caliber. By the end of high school, I could write a proper paper, which clearly explained my ideas so that an intelligent person could pick up the paper and understand it.
But where did the computer come in during all this? The computer, at this point, was not an evolution of human communication for me – it was simply a tool to assist me in my schoolwork. The word processor allowed me to make my ideas readable (my handwriting is horrible), to correct errors easily, and to print out a perfect copy of my work. This, perhaps, is the pinnacle of our era of writing, just before we sink into the “de-evolution” of communication, with unreadable online type. The computer brought any person the ability to write and print their ideas in perfect form, without so much as an eraser mark or torn page ear; It allowed perfect type to come from every household.
However, the ideas that the computer, and technology, brought forth, were a double-edged sword. As I was writing my papers on modern American literature, I also ignited the beginnings of my social identity – the creation of my persona online, at that time with something so simple as a website and a instant messaging name. The online world was one much different from that of my classes. The goal of being online, is information, data, at light speed (or as close to it as one can get). No one online has time for periods, for spelling, for grammar. They need the INFO, and they need it now. That is the reason why writing in online communities is like it is – if you and the collective people you are addressing understand the ideas which you are trying to express, why does it matter what form it is in? Your idea comes across.
The most extreme form of “tech-speak” would have to be the cell phone sub-language known as txting. I would say the roots of txting came way back, even before cell phones – I remember learning beeper language. On old beepers, there were no lines for text, so people spelled out messages with numbers. A 1 could be an I, a 3 could be an E, a 5 an S, and so on. The messages took about 2 minutes per word to decode, but this is the same as the internet example above – if your idea gets across, you have succeeded.
Text Messaging took beeper language to the next level. Now, you could send actual letters in messages! And with multi-line screens on cell phones, you could send sentences, maybe a paragraph! The only limitation was, text messages had a limit of 160 characters on them. Had cellular companies never made this limit, the human language may not have been in the form it is in today. The 160 character limit forced people to shorten their messages so that they could fit more info into a single message. You became “u”. Vowels were removed from words, and common phrases like “talk to you later” were abbreviated as “ttyl”. At the same time, people were discovering instant messaging online. Both were similar means of communication – short and instant – and so, the texting language traveled to IMs as well.
The current generation of humans are being raised to embrace the computer, embrace the technology as something as essential to our lives as breathing or drinking. For the first time, unlimited information is at the fingertips of any human, any time, in their household. One of the repercussions of this seamless technological environment is the merging of one’s personal life, and ones business affairs. This is not just true with spelling and grammar – look at the stereotypes of telecommuting – a worker doing their business report with their pajamas still on. We even have little quirky signs of the times, such as The Half-Suit, for looking professional while videoconferencing (http://www.businessbib.com). So it is natural that the two rapidly dividing dialects of English – traditional, and “Simplified English” would clash. We already see children who use U and i as words in essays – they associate those letters directly to the meaning – the middleman, the word itself, is gone.
Simplified English has been so successful that it has been given its own name by researchers of language – CMC, standing for Computer Mediated Communication. Could this be the end of modern English as we know it? Will CMC eventually be seen as the most efficient method of communication, and become the defacto form of writing? Not quite. CMC is quite different from writing, and from speaking. “There’s no immediate feedback, and you can have multiple conversations at once [when you are emailing]” (Science News, 03/05), so CMC is not quite the same as verbal communication. And unlike proper writing, CMC is made to get a point across – the idea is the idea, so to speak.
The paradigm of “getting the idea across” is not just applied to speech in the universe of the Internet – this idea is applied to the Internet as a whole. The first iteration of the Internet is slowly receeding, making what for what has come to be known as Web 2.0. In Web 1.0, users and designers were testing the limits of the Internet, seeing what kind of graphics, what kind of development they could throw up on this international network. Web 2.0, on the other hand, is defined as “internet based services…that let users collaborate and share information online quickly.” (“Web 2.0, 11/05”). Now, with the rise of Web 2.0 services, companies are seeing that they must do 2 things with an internet service:
-The service must be accessible from anywhere, from as many devices as possible.
-The service must convey the data or information in the most straightforward and efficient way possible.
And so, we come back to the main benefit of the Internet – information anywhere, easily. But how do we get this information? The Internet is not just made by a government, or a company. It is a collective of millions of pages, created by all different people, which may or may not have a biased opinion. So, we have this massive information repository, but no way to verify. Enter Wikipedia. Wikipedia represents one of the most radical, and at the same time accepted, ideas in human research, knowledge, and communication. The information on Wikipedia is not censored or modified by a governing body – the site operates through user participation and input. If someone submits false data to a Wikipedia entry, another Wikipedia user will soon see the inaccurate data and report it. If enough disagree with the information, it will not be shown on the front page of the entry.
Is this really the best way to have a collective of human data - by majority vote? Some believe that humans are naturally evil, and must strive to become good – does this not look poorly upon the fate of the Wikipedia, then? Comedian Stephen Colbert coined the phrase “Wikiality” in response to this fear. “Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington had slaves? If I want to say he didn’t, that’s my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it’s also a fact.” (Colbert Report, Wikiality, 6/06) Wikiality is the idea that all human knowledge should be based on a majority idea, and then that idea is true. Ideas come forth of Hitler, telling people a lie long enough until those people all believe it.
Perhaps we shouldn’t take everything seen on Wikipedia as 100% truth – there is always the chance that some false information will slip in between the eyes of editors. However, Wikipedia is an excellent resource for beginning research. Just as a traditional encyclopedia covers the main ideas of a topic, Wikipedia should be used to get a broader sense of a topic, and might help to provide links to read further into the topic. When I am using Wikipedia, I pay attention to the citing in the document – often times the original sources will provide much better information than the Wikipedia entry itself.
Wikipedia, therefore, is a Web 2.0 service in itself – it’s goal is to help easily locate information on a topic, and create a starting place to expand your research into other media. Just like messaging, the point is to get as much information across in as few words as possible.
Will writing disappear in our future? Will “official knowledge” be eradicated from the earth, replaced by a “majority-rules” body of thinking? Pretty unlikely. In my opinion, and through my experiences, technology is not going to impede my communication, and proper English is not going to be eliminated from school curriculum anytime soon. We are just helping to create a massive body of knowledge, the Internet. The Internet needs to convey its information as efficiently as possible, hence a new evolution of the human language to compliment it. We are not looking at the de-evolution of the English language; we are looking at CMC, at a new way of experiencing data. Only the future will tell how this way of communication will continue to evolve and streamline itself.

Sources
Johnson, Steven. Interface Culture. Harper San Francisco/Basic Books 1997 ISBN 0-465-03680-5

On Point Radio – “Wikipedia: Open Intelligence”
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/08/20060802_b_main.asp

Klosk – “The Businessbib”
http://www.businessbib.net

NPR – “OMG: IM Slang Is Invading Everyday English”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=5221618

Science News for Kids – “The Snappy Lingo of Instant Messages”
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050330/Feature1.asp

Wikipedia – “Wikipedia In Popular Culture/Wikiality”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_in_popular_culture

Web 2.0
Http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html