I hesitate to even post on this, because I feel like I’ve written too many “does the dominance of computers spell the end of __________” entries over the life of this blog. But for whatever reason, when I was out riding my bike this weekend, this question came into my head: what is the future of writing? We’ve certainly talked about the future of reading here before, but what about its counterpart?
I don’t really have to write anything by hand at work (and actually, I think I’ve probably printed less than 30 pages for business purposes in the almost five months I’ve been at Google). I do jot down a few bullets when an attorney comes by to give me an assignment, or I’ll throw a few reminders on a sticky note if I’m afraid I’ll forget something. At home, I’m mostly electronic as well. Besides signing checks, writing thank you notes, or putting together a grocery list, all of my personal “inputting” is digital.
Earlier this year when I was traveling for work, I decided to ask the young attorney I was assisting for tips from his days at law school. His number one piece of advice to me was, “No matter what your classmates do, do not take notes on your computer.” He went on to explain that there’s nothing wrong with taking notes on your computer, per se. It’s certainly easier at the time of the notetaking to do it that way. But by writing notes by hand, you a) spend that much more effort and time forming the words, and thus thinking about them; b) are not distracted by the dozen other things you can do on your computer instead of paying attention; and c) have that much more of a motivation, when it comes down to studying for an exam, to type up your notes. This is what I did in college, and I think it played a large part in whatever success I had at tests (personally, I’d write a paper any day over taking a test).
Actually, the first time I did this was in 9th grade. When it came time for my biology exam at the end of the year, our teacher told us that we could bring in one 5″x8″ index card with whatever information we wanted on it. Already a computer geek by that age, I decided that I’d do this on the computer where I could type and print much smaller than I could write. I spent most of the weekend before the exam on that card: inputting information from my notebook, moving it around, and organizing it so I could find it quickly and easily on test day.
Last Tuesday, my otherwise trusty MacBook sputtered out for the second time in six months. In February, I returned home to find my white plastic-encased sidekick unable to boot up. One new hard drive later, I was back in action (Apple’s awesome Time Machine utility saved me from any data loss). Unfortunately, I had to relive this scenario last week when my MacBook wouldn’t revive after a routine reboot. And so it was, after a painless call to AppleCare tech support, that I shipped my MacBook off to let the wizards work their magic on my poor, sick machine.
My birthday was last week, though I unfortunately had to spend the majority of the day taking an 
Bezos writes almost exclusively about the Kindle, the e-reader created and sold by Amazon that seems to be constantly going out-of-stock. While the whole letter is interesting and informative, I found that one paragraph in particular clarified something about the Kindle that I hadn’t though about before: the Kindle not as the harbinger of informational ADD, but as the savior of long-form reading as we know it. I especially like the term “information snacking,” and you’ll probably see me use it more and more here on the blog.
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