J. D. Applen (2013) spends the entire section “Words on Pages and Screens” in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” quoting Sven Birkerts. He thinks Birkerts’ reason for not thinking fondly of digitalizing traditionally written text is “compelling.” But based purely off the quotes and reasons he references, I think they fall disappointingly flat. Birkerts basically argues that the weight of words on a screen have less impact than their traditional counterparts, but it reads very much like a complicated, long-winded version of “It’s because of those darned phones!”
Weightless in The Formal
Birkerts first justifies the supposed lack of weight of digital texts by dismissing things like ebooks by saying their words are basically “gone” once a device has been turned off. Words in books, in contrast, “will still be there, albeit in the dark and out of sight” (p. 18). Let’s get this straight: Words on a digital device do not just vanish. We put them away, like traditional text and, despite that, they still exist. Turning a device back on is like pulling a physical book out of its shelf.
Birkerts proceeds, using the analogy that words on physical material are a “leaf plucked out and held in the hand.” But digital texts are supposedly just a leaf that “floats on the surface” of a river (p. 18). I’m not sure if I’m missing the point, but both analogies can apply to either writing space. Traditional text “floats on the surface” of a page, while digital text does so on a screen. And both forms of text are “plucked out and held” through a book and digital device, respectively. What’s the difference?
Another issue Birkerts has with digital text is, as Applen (2013) puts it,
Birkerts feels that the “unstable” way of producing information on a computer is like oral speech, where we work out our ideas as we talk or argue. This diminishes the power of the written word produced by the writing practice where one carefully figures out each point or idea, writes or types it out, then moves on to the next idea. By “process,” Birkerts means that writing on computers has us understand that words are provisional and we write them out more quickly, then change them without thinking anything of it (157). (p. 19)
This feels like Birkerts is shitting on people who write shitty first drafts. To be clear, everyone has their own version of a shitty first draft, be it in their head or on paper. Similarly, they choose whether to edit that draft in their head or on paper. Just because the initial product is “weightless” does not mean the final product isn’t thorough and impactful. It may even have more weight to it. As Applen (2013) talks about in a prior section, writing down ideas gives the writer the ability to study their thoughts. This allows more critical thinking.
Regardless, everyone is different and so it’s impossible for one writing style to work for all. It’s also good that we are now able to revise published pieces more easily. What if they contain misinformation? We are human, and even prior to the late age of print, people made mistakes. With the digital, we can inform people of those mistakes more quickly.
Birkerts continues, making other points such as computers don’t allow us to become unique individuals. For the most part, though, they amount to “old is good” and “new is bad.”
Potential in the Informal
I checked out what my peers thought after I was done reading. I wanted to see if I had misunderstood or missed something, or was biased in my perspective. That’s when I stumbled across Emely Taveras’ blog post “The Weightlessness of Digital Words: Why Nothing Online Matters.” She connects Birkerts’ idea and, arguably, backs them up better than he does. She does so by placing them in the context of informal digital text (e.g., social media).
For example, he argued that words hold less weight online because word processors make it easy to alter text. As I brought up earlier, this sounds nonsensical in the context of formal writing. But informally, she points out “The curious paradox of digital communication is that it feels temporary but can be eerily permanent.” And this leads to unfiltered, “vicious” comments: “The delete button is the modern equivalent of crossing something out—except that crossing out leaves evidence of the original thought, while deletion creates the illusion that it never existed at all.” Here, the fact that Birkerts argues writing becomes sloppier when digitalized because people believe they can just delete or replace what they wrote makes sense.
Final Weigh in
I still stand by my assertion that Birkerts’ argument, as Applen (2013) represented it, fell “disappointingly flat.” This is because Birkerts seemed to make his argument more so with formal digital text in mind. He brought up history, libraries, and thoughtful writing on a typewriter, amongst other things. Applen (2013) reinforced this, too, by using word processors, scholarly journals, magazines, and similarly formal prints as examples. I can’t remember a single time either one referenced informal print or text. But maybe I missed the point because reading Birkerts words digitally reduced them. Or maybe it’s because his words, whether carved into stone or written on a word processor, had no substance in the situation he placed them in from the beginning.
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