The World of Writing According to Email :: Internet Technology e-mail Essays

The World of Writing According to Email The world is an ever changing place, and with the advancement of cyber culture technology, many times we are faced with new ideas and ways of life that we never dreamed would be possible. With these changes, we are also faced with the making personal decisions of whether we believe these new ways have helped or harmed the world of writing. I remember the moment e-mail entered my life. It was a week after my family had dropped my older brother, the first born, off to his freshman year at Bowling Green State University. Within that first week of having to adjust to setting one less plate at the dinner table, we quickly realized how fast we would become financially broke due to high phone bills. We had heard about this thing called the internet, where people from all over the world could connect to and communicate via electronic mail, but not until we became aware that BGSU provided each student with her/his own personal e-mail address were we interested. That was the moment. My dad quickly looked into it and before we knew it we were connected. Every day, several times a day, we would disconnect the phone line, listen to the awful dial tones, and sit five inches from the computer monitor, anxiously reading about his college experiences. As Wendy Lesser, author of essay, The Conversion, writes, â€Å"And e-mail, b y bringing back personal correspondence, reintroduces us to the form of writing that best enables us to know and acknowledge friendship.† (Tribble/Trubek 232). It soon became our link to the outside world. Not only did it keep us in touch with our beloved hard working college student, but just as Lesser experienced, it created a doorway to other long lost friends and family members. In a way, this new e-mail thing made us feel as though the miles that separated us weren’t so far after all. In his essay, From Pencils to Pixels, Dennis Baron states that, â€Å"The computer, the latest development in writing technology, promises, or threatens, to change literacy practices for better or worse, depending on your point of view.† (36) Cyberculture technology will never cease to change and improve, but by being a part of this society, we have the unique opportunity to jump on board, accept the changes, and enjoy the advancements to our benefit, or sit back and watch the world pass us by.