Bolter's Assumptions

Yesterday in class we discussed Chapter 1 in our required text Writing Space by Bolter. Bolter had many biased opinions as to how multimedia is creating paper text to become somewhat obsolete. I am quite sure that everyone has an opinion on this particular subject, and I would like to be the first to state my opinion. I truly believe that everything that is created in our ever progressive society is eventually reinvented to make it more user friendly. Rachel mentioned in class that there was the usage of hieroglyphics in ancient times which, during that particular era, hieroglyphics was the most advanced literal technology that ever happened to mankind. After continuous progression hieroglyphics were revamped into something much simpler and more user friendly and it was introduced as the Greek alphabet. This Greek alphabet eventually became the foundation for our English alphabetic system. All original documents had to be handwritten with nothing more than the human eye for corrections and revisions, until white out was introduced centuries later. Then somewhere around the 15th century a simple machine was created which made it that much easier to distribute large amounts of literary text. Although printing presses are not yet obsolete, it has had numerous modifications to keep up with the high demand for newspapers and magazines. This invention was followed by the classic typewriter which in the 1970's and 1980's was viewed as the best invention ever created and two steps ahead of technology. The typewriter allowed for backspacing to correct typo's and some were even equipped with automatic margin settings. However, typewriters also became nearly obsolete when multimedia introduced the medium of a personal computer to create literary text. Now it is equipped with spelling and grammar checks to ensure a properly composed thought and/or ideal. Now, virtually in our forefront there is the ability to distribute literary thoughts without leaving the comfort of our home or office space. Will it eventually eliminate the usage of paper? I believe that possibly about a century from now with everything already intended to become more green and Eco-friendly, paper text will become obsolete leaving everything to your disposal through hypertext multimedia. There are many people who find this assumption absurd and I am sure the same individuals who continued to utilize hieroglyphs also thought it absurd that there would ever be another means of communication. Absurd?! I think not, only a multimedia evolution.