David Bowie's letter to Sandra Dodd

One of the things that fascinates me when reading something like the letter above, (a letter that David Bowie wrote to his first “American Fan”) is the fact that writing was so linear compared to how most of us write today. Imagine putting together a letter, report, or news article back in the day. I mean, once you typed something, it was practically impossible to go back and change the structure of a paragraph or rewrite something  without having to start all over again. I suppose you could go back and add your corrections after the fact with pen, but that’s not very professional now, is it? Or I suppose you could do as David Bowie did when he caught an error and just make up a new word. Wi-at? Oh Bowie, you’re so cleaver clever.

In the video from my post on the birth of Web 2.0, the presentation starts with an example of linear writing, and then briefly illustrates how writing has changed with the help of technology. I’m absolutely certain that our method of writing is drastically different from the writing of past generations, but is it affecting our minds? I think so.

When I write, I go over a paragraph multiple times. When I’m done writing, I go back and take out entire paragraphs or move them up or down on a page. That’s because the writing that comes out is often disorganized and scattered. Digital text allows me to organize, delete, and restructure my thoughts on a page without having to start typing my entire document all over again. It almost feels like this style of writing was invented to suit my scattered brain.

So is technology affecting our minds? Yes, but some seem to think that it’s a bad thing. They say that it’s making us less organized and less effective.  I totally disagree. As evident from the letter above, communication was not linear in 1967, and I don’t think it has ever been (unless Bowie was is as scatter-brained as me). I believe that due to our technological limitations, we forced our brains to think in a very unnatural linear fashion. Now, with the help of technology, writing is more natural, more non-linear, and I couldn’t be any happier. If you ask me whether I think technology is affecting our minds, I’d say yes…finally, I can write like I think and then reorganize my thoughts so I can at least seem like I have some structure! At the very least, people can now understand what the hell I’m writing (you’d understand if you saw my handwriting).

How is technology affecting my mind? It makes  me feel normal, and that’s not so bad now, is it?