An(other) Idea
Writerly persons, I seek your thoughts.
Technology has been on my mind lately. I was in the park yesterday, chain-smoking while writing in my journal (using a very old technology while I mused on new ones - irony that made me chuckle, of course) , and I couldn't stop thinking about how it has affected the way we communicate. More so than my thoughts on compiling facebook posts, ims, texts and etc. for myself, I was thinking in the grander scheme of things.
How has technology changed storytelling?
Can I tell my old world stories in this new format? 160 characters or less. Fiercely abbreviated English. Facebook status updates. Facebook posts. IMs. These are all different ways of communicating but they all have one thing in common: a limitation. There are limits in place to how much one can write. And because of this we have adopted an abbreviated way of writing and transmitting information. The story must be shortened. Eventful things highlighted over the whole. Or we must tell the story in burts. Multiple texts. Multiple posts. Multiple IMs (because those, yes, have a character limitation for a single instant message...in fact, though I'm not sure it exists anymore, in the days when AIM was first becoming popular there was a limit to how many messages you could send per unit of time. And you would be signed out of your account for a brief period if you exceeded this amount).
Or, something else I've noticed, we use others' words far more than our own. A friend brought this to my attention (via Facebook) one day when her status was something like "I've noticed a lot of song and movie quoting on Facebook today. What's up with that." A short electronic discussion followed where one person remarked how creativity is dead, but both he and the original poster admitted they follow the quoting trend themselves. A single lyric or line sums up an emotion, an event or even a whole day. I can communicate emotions, events, thoughts, comedy, tragedy, awkwardness, etc. with Office references with friends of mine. We can speak in allusions that begin with said TV show, begin on an awkward tone that switches to bitchy and so brings forth Devil Wears Prada, then KT Tunstall Lyrics, then Grey's Anatomy references, then Stranger's With Candy references. It can keep going.
I was asking myself if this really is a terrible thing. It can be seen as uncreative, yes, to rely on others' words to express yourself. Or is it a more complex way of speaking? Words that were once intended for a single purpose take on multiple uses. It's sometimes like code. There is more buried beneath the language.
Of course, this only works with intimate friends on the most complex level. I'm not saying there is a complete revolution in speech. Those who do what I'm writing about have to be very connected to their technology. This communication is a by product of technology. Which means if the technology were to change (like the now outdated way of T9 texting) so would the communication. Say if cell phones all came with a speech to word program and the limitations on texts were lifted. Then people would just speak into their phones, which would then spell and punctuate everything without needed to abbreviate.
Then this is also an interesting idea. I hated the idea of texting at first but quickly learned to when it became obvious that it was the preferred way of communicating. I learned how to communicate using T9, that is now obsolete because of my phone. And I'm quickly learning how to type just as fast with a mini full size keyboard. We learn different these different ways to communicate, ways that change and become outdated faster than their predecessors. People had to learn to use the rotary phone. That was around for a long time before the dial tone one (we still had one of those old phones when I was growing up). And the way we speak on the phone we learned. The "Hello. This is she/he." Or "Speaking." We learned a language for the phone that still exists. But our communication with new technology comes and goes faster.
Well, now, my 2010, 20 something mind has deviated and forgotten some of what it started. Hmm. Let's see if I can't get back on it.
Nope, not really.
Anyway, I'm basically just continuing to think on the idea of using new ways to tell old stories. The stories are the things that don't seem to change.
To what end? To see if I can, I suppose. To see if it's possible. And, for myself, to embrace the New, since the Old, ever my favorite, has begun to fail me. I no longer care as much for the ways I used to tell stories. I need some new format. Something a little more real and a little less fantastic.
If you have read this, I appreciate your attention to a post without a Ta-DAH! at the end. A combination of too much coffee on a stomach with too little food in it.
The End.