Writing has definitely changed over the past years.  When I was a kid in school, the main way to communicate while class was in session was to write a note.  By write a note, I mean taking a loose piece of paper, writing on it, folding it into the smallest triangle possible, and either passing it or throwing it to its intended receiver.    When I was in middle school, I wrote a fair amount of notes during class, and any one who has ever written a note knows that the hardest part is getting it to that person without the teacher noticing.  With this process, the chance for interception was always a major risk.

Eventually, the trend of AIM or AOL Instant Messenger caught on.  Every day after school, I would go home, and spend hours on AIM talking to my friends.  With AIM, you didn’t need to use the phone to talk to people, but instead wrote messages to one another in a personalized chat room.  This proved to be very efficient, as you could have multiple conversations going at once.

Another trend in writing and communication was the implementation of the laptop.  Today, many college students choose to attend class with a laptop as opposed to a pencil and pen.  While they are taking notes in word processor programs, they are able to talk to friends using AIM, and surf the web by using wireless internet.  After class is finished, if a friend missed class and needs the notes, they no longer have to copy it by hand, but rather the owner of the computer will just send them the file through e-mail. 

When cell phone companies noticed how popular instant messaging had become among computers, they adopted the idea to what we know today as text messaging.  Today, it seems that text messaging is a huge trend in cell phone usage.  Many people opt to text someone as opposed to calling.  I am not one of these people.  In fact, I can not stand text messaging.  I personally think it takes forever to say what could be said in a 1 minute phone conversation.  But in today’s standards, I am considered to be old fashioned. 

I agree with Landow when he says, “These new digital information technologies involve fundamental changes in the way we read and write, and these radical differences, in turn, derive from a single fact, the shift from the physical to the virtual.”  Writing has moved towards a digital generation.  Yes, while it is still possible to write the old fashioned way, digital media is becoming more and more efficient, leaving the pen and paper for some changes ahead. Sven Birkerts tells us that, “What oral poetry was for the Greeks, printed books in general are for us.  But our historical moment, which we might call “proto-electronic,” will not require a transition period of two centuries.  The very essence of electronic transmissions is to surmount impedances and to hasten transitions.”  I completely agree with what he is saying, and consequently feel the same about the way in which we will write also.  The future is coming.  It is a future that will be completely digital, and the way we read and write will change accordingly.