It was a lovely June morning, and I was driving to the Saturday seminar I had registered for at my college’s Alumni Weekend festivities. The lecture, “What’s Trending,” being given by a favorite English teacher, would provide both light and shadow to the rest of my day.
After
listening to 60 minutes of a mixed bag of consonant clusters and acronyms; an
‘A to Z’ soup of apps, androids, iPads, iPhones, Smartphones and ‘Zite’ (a new
‘personalized' magazine for my phone’), I thought our group of some 20 former Communications/English majors (including
the 2 lecturers) might spend a brief time talking about ‘the good old days of
books, magazines and newspapers.’
Some attendees - branching into the blogosphere - wanted to
learn ‘how to monetize’ their blogs. No
time for that. The teachers were not moved.Booklovers among us cried out, “Why doesn’t anyone read anymore?”
One of us answered: “You know what Steve Jobs said…'people don’t read anymore.’"
“We could spend hours talking about the changes in storytelling, journalism and media,” the teacher said.
We could, but we will not, is what he meant to say.
Our group went on
to share a few pleasantries, we said our goodbyes, and I walked back to my car. As I opened its door and got inside, I found
my hands tightening onto the steering wheel.
I looked out the car window and took in the lovely natural surroundings
of the campus, the warm sun, the blue sky, and the newer, modest buildings
resting fairly comfortably among the older, more stately ones. The splendid green trees still stood
tall. I took a deep breath.
As I felt myself getting upset, my
stomach performed its customary somersaults. I wanted to cry. Instead, I put my head on my hands. So many questions buzzed through my
mind. After a few moments, I drove home,
and my mind would not stop racing.
Do we really need English Lit teachers
anymore? What’s the point of Shakespeare
or Milton? Or Dickens? Hemingway? Edith Wharton? Plays?
Theater?
Is there
any value in the artful turn of a phrase?
Will phrases – or sentences -survive?
Will words still matter?
Will the structure of language – as we have learned and understood it in our lifetime – become extinct?
Will new generations speak and write only in fragments, and will we of an older culture still be able to understand them - and each other?
What is a Communications or Journalism degree worth in today’s expanding Mobile/ Digital /Technology World?
Wouldn’t students and colleges both save many thousands of dollars just by having teachers learn and teach the newest ‘Apps’ and work with students on how to use them for digital storytelling?
My thoughts continued as I drove the verdant Pennsylvania countryside:
Should I still keep trying to write and publish short stories?
Should I learn how to write poetry instead?
As a published author, is there an audience for my work outside of cyberspace?
It’s so crazy out there…who will listen?
Where? On the run?
The questions flooded my mind, and
I began to understand the truth of living in more than one reality. I’m familiar with living in the natural and
the physical. That third reality -
Living Online - disturbs me. Okay… it
terrifies me.
I know technology is reshaping the world. I get it.
I see all those disembodied faces sitting at restaurant tables, or
waiting in line for a table, their thumbs tapping away or sweeping on a
screen. No one talks.
I wonder . . . do they even taste their
food when a smiling waiter or waitress places it in front of them.? I never hear ‘thank you’.
I don’t want to stray too far from
my natural, physical, human roots. I
feel myself clutching harder at the steering wheel. My eyes fall on the ominous lawn signs along
my road home: “Final Days for Furniture
Sale.”
What are your thoughts on how social media affects the writer?
Edda R. Pitassi has maintained a love/hate relationship with writing since she started seeing her “letters to the editor” in print at age fifteen. A published journalist with several suburban newspapers, she currently contributes a monthly book review for Chester County Seniors! newspaper. A former web content writer and proofreader, her employment history includes a 20-year career with IBM. Highlights of her writing life comprise a writing internship in New York City, editing Morning at Wellington Square, and contributing to the Women’s Writing Circle. Her most recent work includes a short story, "The Zen Art of Peeling Potatoes," and a poem, "An Aging Rolling Stones Riff," in Slants of Light: Stories and Poems From the Women's Writing Circle.
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