Introduction
Technology and literature are not two disciplines that one would necessarily think go together—or that one would even want to go together. Historically, though, technology has made literature more available and accessible to the population. The development of the printing press may be the most obvious example. Before books could be printed on a mass level, they were reserved for the wealthy and elite. But with new technology, books became cheaper and more widely available. More availability meant a wider readership, which is commonly viewed as a positive thing. So why, now, do people often fear the Internet and technology, believing that it will have a negative impact on literature? Whether we view possible changes in a positive or negative light, they are inescapable and we must at least think about how technology could change the way we study and think about literature and the act of writing.
As college students living in an electronic era, we see how technology is moving into all areas of life. The Internet has changed the way that we do many things, including the ways that we do research, communicate and buy our books. Search engines, e-mail, instant messaging and online stores have brought an ease and accessibility to information that wasn’t there a mere decade ago. When I began college, in 1998, I had never had an email account (even then I felt much behind in the times), nor did I feel the need to have daily access to the Internet. Now, I send off e-mails without giving the technology a second thought; I compose texts and store them in an electronic space, and can easily find and explore electronically published writing—all without leaving my home, or even my chair. I can hardly imagine education—sometimes even life—without these technologies, and become incredibly frustrated when, for whatever reason, I cannot gain access to them. We have, at our fingertips, a world that is constantly growing and changing—and a frontier that challenges and tests the limits of our current rules and levels of comfort.