The Age of Print and the Late Age of Print section of the book by JD Applen goes over two distinct ages of print or writing. He mentions remediation and hypermediacy. At some point, JD Applen states this question he says do the words on the page that eventually come from the process have any less meaning power, or gravitas than words on paper or Stone? This is what I will be discussing in my blog post.
Differences
So first let’s go over why there’s an important difference between writing on paper and writing on a computer. You see many people will assume that writing on paper takes more effort it shows more care and thought especially nowadays since it’s it’s not our only option.
Drawbacks
However, it has its drawbacks writing things out on paper or Stone, takes a lot more time there’s more room for human error handwriting could affect one’s ability to read what you’re writing. Then there’s also the fact that people with disabilities who can’t write that well or at all. This isn’t to say it’s impossible but there is an argument that writing can be limited.
In comparison, there are much more options for several different types of people to tell their stories. People with dyslexia can become writers with much more ease now due to computers having options to help them out. However, this isn’t to say that using a computer to better.
Emotional
A certain emotional connection that just can’t be replicated through a computer is lost. Similar to how orality might be more effective in situations. That same ugly-looking handwriting could be an important part of somebody’s written work because it shows that humans need it. For instance, your significant other writing you a love letter yes, they could do the same on a computer, but I would argue that you would feel a lot more emotionally impacted especially nowadays with receiving a physical letter. Now why do I bring this up what does this have to do with the power of a written work? Well ironically despite the differences at its core these 2 different ways of writing are the exact same. Instead of looking at these 2 ways of writing as either an improvement or not, they should be looked at as tools to create literature in different ways.
Back to the Question
So, to circle back around to the question words on a page have more power than on a screen. I would say it depends on how you write what you’re writing. It depends on what medium it’s in.
Yes, you could write a poem and have that same poem be on a computer, and it’s effectively the same thing .However if I take that same poem and remediate it into another type of work with Visuals to enhance the poem some may say that that’s better than that poem. But if I then take that same poem and upload a video on to YouTube of someone dramatically reading out that same poem some people may think that’s better than the original power. We can even look at this without remediating something.
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