Adapt. This is the power behind the human brain. Humans have natural instincts to adapt to their surroundings. Their temptation to always receive more and more causes humans to create new and useful ways to benefit themselves. Literature has survived many centuries, from as long ago as the time of the Egyptians, but will the new technology change literature as we know it? Many people think that current developments in technology will kill reading because one item after another is being digitized. Ranging from newspapers to textbooks, written text has been transferred to be accessible on computers and soon almost everything will become available online. People today all wonder about the future of reading and whether booksRELATED ARTICLES
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– Esther Wojcicki will survive our era of technology. The destiny of literature will change and configure over time, mainly affecting newspapers, textbooks and magazines. News will thrive further on the Internet, online textbooks will eventually cause personal computers to become a necessity for all students, and magazines will survive mainly in print, despite the growing technology.
Newspapers have survived many of society’s twists and turns, the oldest newsletter dating back to 1704, but many people wonder how the news will change due to the current technology. News is becoming more and more popular on the Internet, ranging from receiving news from actual news Web sites to social networking sites. Many people prefer online news because it is updated frequently, is faster and easier to skim and scroll through, has many pictures and videos, and just has an overall modern feel to it, changing the whole experience for the reader. On the other hand, many find it enjoyable to read the actual newspaper because they enjoy holding something tangible in their hands and being able to flip through the news, making them feel more involved in what they are reading. News will eventually become mainly available through the Internet or through television, and newspapers will start to either die off or convert to being online. Almost as if following Charles Darwin’s law of natural selection, the “fittest” writers will adapt to the new technology while other writers will perish.
Like newspapers, textbooks are becoming accessible online. Textbooks are the foundation of education for youths, and as young people grow into an age of technology, the mediums of education do as well. Almost every teenager in the country has some connection to the Internet, whether it be an e-mail account or even their own blog. Since the majority of youths spend their time on the Internet, education must change to become more useful to their current lifestyles. Eventually, almost all textbooks will be only online as more schools encourage using computers as one of the main mediums for education. When this occurs, more and more people across the nation will have their own personal computer, which will lead to many more things becoming available online. Education becoming tied to the Internet will lead to a computerized society, where writers post new blog entries, teachers post assignments online, industries focus on their online advertisements, and many parts of people’s lives will revolve around computers.
Despite the fast pace in this era of technology, actual print will still survive in some ways. For example, magazines will survive the changes to online publishing because readers still enjoy the benefits of hand-held writing. Magazines can easily be taken to places, such as the beach, where the reader would not be able to bring their computer. Also, magazines can be quickly read, because the reader can easily maneuver what they wish to read. For these reasons, the magazine represents an intermediate form of writing or literature since it is tangible yet portable and easy to read quickly, thus satisfying many of the demands of our new high-tech society. Therefore, at least this form of the printed page is likely to survive in the future.
The technology of our time period is changing every aspect of every person’s life in one way or another, and reading as we know it will be changed forever. Newspapers, textbooks, and magazines all have a different future ahead of them, whether it be solely online or still in print, and reading will live on.
Diana Connolly wrote this essay when she was in ninth grade for a class at Palo Alto High School taught by Esther Wojcicki, director of the school’s journalism program.