This document summarizes the negative impacts of technology on reading, writing, and education. It argues that electronic books and social media have shortened attention spans and promoted informal writing styles over formal literary works. Studies show more than half of students have been accidentally influenced by the informality of the internet in their school writing. While technology provides access to information, online reading does not progress logically and may not develop critical thinking skills like physical books. The document also raises concerns that digital books could be monopolized by corporations, limiting access, and that online databases of books could be hacked, compromising preservation of literary works. It argues for moderation of technology in education to promote traditional teaching practices involving human interaction.

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Joshua Pausanos
David Teeple
LING 21, Section 6
4 December 2012
The Fate of the Written Word
EBooks, or electronic books, have become increasingly popular, more so than printed
books, rendering libraries useless. At the same time, the Internet has captured the attention spans
of the youth, which is much different compared to generations of the past who spent time in
creative worlds manifested from literature. Technology has altered the value of books and
reading. Now, in exchange for classic narratives, instant messages on social-networking sites
have become the source for gossip. Our brains have even changed the way we process
information read from a screen, which is dangerous considering it has become more popular than
reading from a traditional paper book. And although the advent of electronic media has made
communication and information easier to access, the safety of classic literary works on an
electronic platform is compromised at the hands of hackers. Many believe that technology is
revolutionizing the way we live for the better however if the safety issues and negative influence
it has on reading, writing, and understanding affects us detrimentally then we should prevent
technology from digitizing books and instead realize the importance of physical literature.
It’s shocking that a majority of today’s youth write more online than for educational
purposes. They have familiarized themselves with the informal jargon associated with texting,
instant messaging, emailing, and status updates rather than the formal storylines of classic
novels. Popularized social-networking websites like Facebook and Twitter spread informal
writing across the web. A report published in 2010 by Clarion University shows social media and

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text messages are "consistently associated with the use of particularly informal written
communication techniques, along with formatting problems, nonstandard orthography, and
grammatical errors."(Pacheco 2012) This literary epidemic is serious and often overlooked. K.C.
Jones supplies us with the growing number of students affected by technology’s negative
influence in his article “ ‘LOL’ Slips Into Homework”. His research concluded that:
While 73% of teens said their personal electronic communications do not impact
school writing and 77% said they have no impact on their personal writing, 64%
of teens admitted they use informal writing styles in school work, 50% said they
used informal punctuation and grammar. Many of the respondents said they used
those informal styles accidentally. (Jones 2011)
The fact that more than half of students have been affected by Internet’s informality is staggering
but to know that they have done it accidentally is alarming. It’s as if technology is stunting the
growth of student potential.
Despite technology’s role in the deterioration of formal language, many believe that
devices such as eBooks hold the power to a new way we perceive novels. In her article “The
Book Tomorrow: Future of the Written Word” Janet Murray considers this is the case as she
argues that future eBooks will feature an interactive network of information meant, “to create a
focus for sustained shared attention”(Murray 2011). However, in order to create a “focus” an
adequate attention span is required. A study featured in Alan Greenblatt’s article “Impact of the
Internet on Thinking” reveals that “young children and college students who exceeded a two-
hour-per-day limit on watching television and playing video games had a harder time paying

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attention in class.”(Greenblatt 2011) With the attention spans of the youth already diminishing
Murray’s argument in favor of eBooks seems unconvincing. In this example we see that, in
addition to the web’s informality, television and video games have a role in the harmful impact
of technology on the way we read, write and perceive information.
Written text is both useful for sharpening our minds and safer than screened devices in
maintaining the regularity of brain functions. In Greenblatt’s article mentioned earlier, Stanford
psychiatrist and researcher Elias Aboujaoude exposes the threat online reading poses to our
understanding of information revealing how:
Eye-tracking experiments suggest that online reading does not progress in a
“logical” way but unfolds like a giant-font letter “F” superimposed on the page.
Users read in a horizontal movement across the upper part; move toward the
bottom and read across in a second horizontal movement; then scan the left side in
a quick vertical glance online reading seems just as foreign as online writing.
(Greenblatt 2011)
It’s no wonder why the attention spans of users have shortened; online-reading yields
significantly less value to writing, if any at all. Maryanne Wolf, director of Tufts University
Center for Reading and Language Research concludes that books “bring our own [lives] to the
text” while “the new format will reward moving on quickly to the next thing rather than holding
onto a thought.”(Clemmitt 2008) Books actively involve the reader’s attention while screens
force our eyes to mindlessly scan over text. The physical book has greater standing over

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technology because of the value it brings to language. It instills the familiarity of formal writing,
enhances our brain activity, and is overall a safer means of attaining information.
Despite the benefits that written text offer, no ground is being made in its preservation. If
we fail to realize the importance of books and eBooks become the normal platform for reading
then we would be letting corporate America regulate what we read. Its not just that physical
books will disappear if we do not safeguard them, but the stories and information that they
communicate will also be lost if corporations take over. For example, Google has shown their
interest in monopolizing the market by exploiting eBooks for their digital freedom by scanning
libraries full of literature for their use. In her article “Future of Books”, Sarah Glazer reveals that
“Google's Book Search engine [will] make entire copyrighted books available online for a
fee”(Glazer 2011) which is ludicrous considering Google scanned the books at public libraries
where said literature would be free to read. So if eBooks replace physical novels we may not be
able to access the great works of our past due to money. If technology gets to the point in which
all books are stored on a digital database owned by corporate America then we are looking
forward to a world with limited knowledge. Not only because of money will we lose classic
stories and information but safety is also a huge concern for the digital age.
Hackers are constantly getting better at tapping into complex firewalls, so what is
stopping them from hacking into an eBook database where the last versions of novels reside?
Storing the content of millions of books in a digital database is incredibly insecure. In Marcia
Clemmitt’s article “Computer Hacking” she references the “international protest group
Anonymous [that] shut down government and corporate websites” to show just how powerful
hackers can be. She also reports “thefts of money and information via hacked computers are on
the rise worldwide, with hundreds of billions in losses annually.”(Clemmitt 2011) If

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governments can’t even withstand attacks by hackers then corporations trying to protect eBooks
could easily fall. The rise in technology will be the end of the written word if nothing is done to
keep it safe.
The main force of technology running physical books into the ground is the eBook
industry. Its very surprising that in July 2010 “the publishing world marked a milestone…when
word shot ’round the exploding array of digital news-reading gadgets that e-books — for the first
time ever — had outsold hardcover books on Amazon.com” This statistic is proof of a
discouraging truth: addiction. Generations of the 21st century are addicted to technology. Our
dependence on devices is a negative affect of technology and as Alisa Rustic states in her article
“Dependence on Technology Increases in Teens” technology such as the Internet and cellphones
“can reduce the efficiency of one’s communication or speaking skills”(Rustic 2011). EBooks
contribute to this negative influence. Instead of kids reading text on paper in books, they are
damaging their ability to communicate properly by reading from screens. If anything technology
should advance the younger generations not degenerate them. Technology like EBooks may have
the potential to put all the world’s information on one device but the risks they present limit them
from becoming a practical tool in education the way books are.
Books have always been used as learning tools throughout education. English teachers
use famous and classic novels to emphasize literary devices or themes, math teachers use books
to give visual representations to a particular methods; education is based from books. Of course
the Internet can provide the same information but with the growing dependence on technology
many believe technology should be moderated in school because of its negative influence on
traditional teaching practices. Clifford Stoll clarifies the conflict in Christopher Conte’s article
“Networking the Classroom” by writing:

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All of us want children to experience warmth, human interaction, the thrill of
discovery and solid grounding in essentials: reading, getting along with others,
training in civic values. Only a teacher, live in the classroom, can bring about this
inspiration. This can't happen over a speaker, a television or a computer screen.
(Conte 2011)
Human interaction is important in a child’s understanding of any subject matter in school.
Teachers get to know their students and with this information they are able to personally help
them surpass any obstacle they meet. Technology has a place in education but more computer
screens in classrooms are not the answer. If we emphasize books and their importance then we
can safely moderate the influence of technology in the classroom and students will help to
preserve the written word.
Libraries also play crucial role in education but like the classroom, libraries face
technology’s pressure as well. Public libraries educate the masses by offering books, videos, and
Internet. They are the home to countless works of literature for free. Regardless of their
hospitality, libraries are suffering from technology’s dominance. Here is a statistic from Barbara
Mantel’s article “Future of Libraries” that will put this into perspective:
More than 90 percent of Americans own a cell phone, up from about 66 percent in
2005, and a quarter of those phones are now “smartphones” capable of searching
the Internet and displaying video, an increase of more than 1,000 percent. And in
just six months, the share of U.S. adults who own an e-book reader, such as an

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Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook, has doubled to 12 percent. (Mantel
2011)
The rise in technology is causing libraries to become useless thus making physical books useless.
Many libraries are closing because of this complication. Without libraries how will people who
can’t afford expensive devices be informed? Without libraries how will the written word
survive? We need to realize the importance of libraries because if they become extinct so could
the future physical literature.
Technology is a double-edged sword by letting us have information in the palms of our
hands but its negative influence on libraries, schools, health and formal writing damages the
safety, and the fate of physical texts. Books still have a place in the world and so does
technology but literature has the upmost value in moderating our dependence on technology. If
we can peal people away from their screens and let them realize the importance of physical
literature then the negative influence of technology can decrease.

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Works Cited
Clemmitt, Marcia. "Computer Hacking." CQ Researcher 16 Sept. 2011: 757-80. Web. 29 Nov.
2011.
Clemmitt, M. (2008, February 22). Reading crisis?. CQ Researcher,18, 169-192. Retrieved from
http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Conte, Christopher. "Networking the Classroom." CQ Researcher 20 Oct. 1995: 921-44. Web.
29 Nov. 2011.
Glazer, Sarah. "Future of Books." CQ Researcher 29 May 2009: 473-500. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Greenblatt, Alan. "Impact of the Internet on Thinking." CQ Researcher 24 Sept. 2010: 773-96.
Web. 13 Nov. 2011.
Jones, K.C. "'LOL' Slips Into Homework But Formal Writing Still Valued - Internet - Social
Networks - Informationweek." InformationWeek | Business Technology News, Reviews
and Blogs. Information Week, 28 Apr. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/social_network/207402196>.
Mantel, Barbara. "Future of Libraries." CQ Researcher 29 July 2011: 625-52. Web. 14 Nov.
2011.
Murray, Janet. "The Book Tomorrow: Future of the Written Word by Janet H. Murray | Focus
2011." Web log post. Focus 2011 | The Book Tomorrow: the Future of the Written Word.
Focus 2011, 29 May 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://focus2011.org/2011/05/the-book-
tomorrow-future-of-the-written-word-by-janet-h-murray/>.

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Pacheco, Walter. "Professor Says Teens' Social Media Lingo Hurts Writing Skills."Professor
Says Teens' Social Media Lingo Hurts Writing Skills. N.p., 23 July 2012. Web. 04 Dec.
2012. <http://phys.org/news/2012-07-professor-teens-social-media-lingo.html>.
Rustic, Alisa H. "Dependence on Technology Increases in Teens." Editorial. The Spectator
[Waterloo, Iowa]. Waterloo Community School District %u2013. 4 Feb. 2011. Web. 29
Nov. 2011. <http://www.waterloo.k12.ia.us/schoolsites/thespectator/dependence-on-
technology-increases-in-teens>.