Is the Fate of the Written Word Tied to Popularity?

The advent of technology in the last decade has led to a handheld device that allows the user to make telephone calls, access the Internet, watch television, download data and music, and probably even more features I am unaware of since I do not use said device.

It is not that I could not use the handheld device; it is that I choose not to use it. It is not necessary for me to use the device to experience the kind of life I want to live.

My life is apparently a lot different than the life of Richard Frisch, who posted an article recently, titled "The Printed Word Is Fading From View, So Get Over It!".

I have lived for 65 years, and while I marvel at the technology of the moment, I am not as taken with it as my children and grandchildren. If Richard Frisch was part of my generation, then we certainly grew up in different rooms of the same house.

If Richard's view of the world arrives as he suspects, then I will be on the outside looking in—he will have technology on his side and I will have the written word on my side. This is primarily because I do not learn and retain knowledge by listening, viewing or doing—I learn by reading the written word. It may well be one of the reasons why I became a writer.

My son does not read or learn the way that I do, he is different and just as successful in the world. He learns by listening and doing, and he retains what he learns amazingly well. He can hear something and if he wants to remember it, he can almost recite it on cue.

I suppose I should applaud the advance of technology without exception, but I do not.

Perhaps I have been in too many power outages. Some people just laugh at me when they discover that I have a landline and no cell phone. Cell phones are nice when you have a breakdown on the road and can easily call for help. I do not have a cell phone because I do not want to be that available—a lot of youngsters cannot get through the day without talking on their cell phone or texting messages for hours.

You can apparently even send naked pictures of yourself over your cell phone, imagine for a moment what fun that can be when your naked pictures end up on YouTube. Yes, our children have some great moments, but not all of them are bright.

The main reason I want a landline is for my family's health and safety. Should a power outage occur, I can still use my landline in an emergency without having electricity. People counter by saying they can still use their cell phone in a power outage. I am smart enough to know there can also be dead zones, or transmission failures, in trying to complete a call.

Perhaps I also have received too many emails from people who would rather email me than talk to me in person. I really find emails to be very annoying. Email users and texting artists have practically become illiterate in their messages—they do wonderfully communicating in their own age group, but can fail miserably when crossing generation gaps.

Another thing that bothers me about emails is that they are voiceless and faceless, users actually can and do hide behind emails in too many situations. It is easy, for example, to dump your boyfriend or girlfriend by just emailing them to "Drop Dead"—certainly not an advance in the art of winning friends and influencing people, not to mention people skills.

When I do business with people of any generation, I want to do it eyeball-to-eyeball. I want the field intelligence I get when looking directly at the person I am communicating with, knowing they will not be as apt to say and do things to my face that they will do behind my back, or with the help of "blind" technology.

My second choice in communication would be over the phone. I can also gain important field intelligence by listening to the tone and attitude of people when they are talking to me, which is something I cannot get from emails and texting messages, neither of which I am inclined to do.

I am admittedly concerned about the apparent decline in reading by the younger generations. They seem constantly glued to a monitor or screen, playing mindless video games—many of which engage them in violent behavior—or choosing to communicate with their friends without actually seeing them.

The advent of technology is dominated by its usage, and the stream runs very, very fast if not deep and of substance, kind of like riding a bicycle for miles and miles while going nowhere in particular. To me, technology offers tools but not the answers to any important questions in life.

I wonder why our children and grandchildren are having such difficult times in forming lasting relationships. Some statistics suggest that 30% of our eligible population is single, many of whom have significant others or rotating live-in partners. Commitment seems to be a crucial issue for our younger people today—they marry later, or not at all, and have children much later than they did years ago.

Could all of this technology be putting up an invisible barrier between significant communication and relationships with others? People who used to have 5 good friends now have 1. Our skills at communicating eyeball-to-eyeball could be diminishing, and if our electrical grid fails, will we be able to see and find each other in the dark, or will be too afraid to look?

Richard can stick with technology and its future advance in our civilization. I will be the keeper of the written word, it may not be around forever, but neither will I. When I pass, I will not be leaving behind a cell phone or my monitor, I will be leaving behind the words I have written.

Richard thinks the written word could perhaps have been around for 6,000 years. Reading has taught me that there was a time when the better part of all knowledge in the world would not have been passed on to future generations if it were not for the monks in the middle ages. While the world was passing them by they recorded history by candlelight and oil lamps. Had they not done so, there may not have been technology as we know it today.