The History Of Writing: Part 3
From Typewriters To Tablets
After The efforts of Cawdrey and Johnson eventually ended up with the Oxford English Dictionary, language and words had been centralised and so had the rules for using them. It represented the evolution of our language up to that point, and with its standardisation set a platform for writing to undergo huge changes again in the twentieth century. For the first time the entire country—and the empire—was singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak.
While the OED no doubt played a big part in the beginnings of the modernisation of writing and the English language, cultural shifts and population expansion (and the literacy and vocabulary surges that came with it) meant it wasn’t the biggest influence on what we’ve ended up with today. As with all things in any society, the biggest influence on progress is one thing: technology.
20th Century Facts
Over the course of the 20th century, technology’s influence on writing wasn’t so much in what was written or the words we used but rather in the manner in which we wrote. It began the shift away from writing by hand and toward the word-processing our musings.
It may have been invented in the 19th century, but the typewriter became the new way to write in the 20th. Thanks to these machines becoming more efficient and cost-effective, they were quickly adopted by industries and became an indispensable tool for writers, admins, and journalists. Typing was faster than handwriting and made producing clean, legible text easier. Machine-made text just looked a lot more professional too.
This mass adoption of the typewriter soon saw its influence spread. It gave rise to mass media, as type-written text was easy to mass-produce. Newspapers and magazines became widely available, and so news on current events and culture was more accessible. It was the same for books too, as old classics and new emergent writers could now have their works mass-produced in paperback-bound books and made available at a pittance for the wider public. At the same time, as a result of compulsory education, the number of people who could read and write was on the rise. That rise created demand. Sales boomed. Authors rose in popularity, whole new genres hit the mainstream—particularly science fiction in the years after World War II.
The Digital Age
Things hit fast-forward from this point on, as in the last thirty years has felt as though every technological breakthrough has been usurped before it’s even taken its first steps. In this age, technology was growing faster than children, and those who began with maybe one computer in their whole school, likely finished their GCSEs with one in their pocket.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, history didn’t repeat itself. Still, it sure did rhyme as homes and businesses threw out their typewriters for personal computers, streamlining tasks such as report writing, correspondence, and record-keeping. For those at home, computers made writing more accessible, reducing barriers to entry for aspiring writers and making it easier for people to produce polished, professional documents.
Next was the internet. In the mid-1990s, the UK, like much of the world, experienced a rapid expansion of internet access, transforming how people communicated. Email became a primary means of correspondence, replacing traditional letters and significantly speeding up communication. The internet also gave rise to new forms of writing and self-expression. Websites, blogs, and online forums allowed people to publish their thoughts and ideas to a global audience. This democratisation of writing meant that anyone with internet access could contribute to public, worldwide conversations.
Suffering From Success?
Then came the Smartphones, blurring the lines between traditional writing and digital communication. Social media platforms like Twitter, with its character limits, encouraged concise, often informal writing styles. The immediacy of mobile communication also fostered a culture of rapid response, where messages and posts were expected to be short and direct.
These devices further revolutionised writing, making it more portable and instantaneous. But with the advances and the advantages they bring, they aren’t without their problems too. With such freedom, and a lack of regulation, misinformation is common and the knowledge of how to properly use social media is now more important than ever.
The latest ‘evolution’ would be AI. It is very much in its infancy, but it is already having an effect on the language that we use. While many see it as a helpful tool, others see it as a threat. It’s a big talking point for everyone from schools to businesses and even the government right now, with calls for regulation and even in some cases its banning. Is it a force for good, or will it prove to be the villain science fiction often depicts it as? Unfortunately, it is just too early to tell.
Where Will Writing Go Next?
With all the technological achievements over the past century, reading and writing have never been more accessible to our population. And yet, there are reports that not only are illiteracy rates on the rise, but the desire to read among youngsters is on the decline.
With everything at the tip of our fingers, the way we ‘consume’ information has changed and has brought with it a whole new language of its own. We don’t even look at it the same way anymore. We don’t watch films or read books, we ‘consume content’. Is this the start of the devolution of the language, or just the concerns of older generations who dismiss this new culture shift as bad out of a fear of change?
After all, there were concerns that books would have a similar negative influence on young people back in the 19th century. A French professor recently found a string of old 19th-century books that centred around the dangers of reading novels and how they were why France at the time was in decline. We might have the answer to that in about 100 years.
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Dan Grabowski is an Amazon best-selling author and has taught in the classroom at primary level previously.