What future for the written word?

I’m told that no one writes letters anymore, and so I log into facebook to see where my friends are, and what they’re doing. It’s all on-line, from the mundane to the wonderful, along with appropriate headlines.  Has the internet been beneficial?

Well, we’ve become a race of witticists, it seems. Posts are bounced back, forth and across as we match or transcend quips.  All those, ‘You know you’re….’ starters that we contribute to.

Who needs editors and influence? Anyone with a media link can join – which opens up opportunities that would have been undreamt of for most of us in previous decades.

Thinking along family history lines, I’m wondering what our descendants will feel though, sifting through our digital trails. The stories behind my likes, favourites and shares are complicated by loyalties, genuine feeling, good manners, ignorance and enlightenment.  What I read is only partially covered by the on-line evidence: what I learn is even less so.

Surely, though, growing up with the language of social-media will mean that future generations develop a method of reading between our lines. Someone will adapt and develop a methodology.  I foresee seminars and thesis creating lines of argument, and theory to be applied to the clouds we’re creating.

Because whether we intend to or not, aren’t we creating ourselves as flash-fictions every time we turn the screen on?