Daily Times

The writing is one of the oldest human art used for the expression of thought and ideas as well as for the preservation of human experiences of life.

The beginning was made with the drawing of pictures of human, animal and plant world around the human beings. From this crude and humble but beautiful art, writing took up words and even picture took the shape of almost like words in many languages of the world. The Chinese and Egyptian language reverberates such a situation. The similar evolutionary process has given a digital shape to the writing arts of the humanity. The writing arts though is performing the similar function but it is being used in a lot of different way and purposes in 21st century as compared to the pictures drawn with the coal inside caves.

From this crude form of writing in the historically known ages, human being kept on developing the art of writings and reached the art of tablet writing, I mean, the writing on the flattened stones, trees barks, and on the hides of the animals. This further gave way to the art of paper writing which resulted into the enormous production of books in almost every part of the world. Many parts of the world developed their printing presses and it established a new world of scholarship, knowledge, skills and information. Information expanded itself and gave birth to the age of digital writing. Computer based MS word writing revolutionized the art of writing. Enormous possibilities of size, fonts, color, highlight grew up and took the art of writing to a new height.

Not only digital writings provided many new norms and possibilities of writing but also it gave birth to a greater number of writers. I must say that digital writing awakened the writer in every one of us. Facebook became the platform where an entire new generation of writers, posts, critics, commentators, and essayists came into being. Where we used to write letters, it is now email. There are many songs, movies and history preserved through writing of letters. All this charm has finished and the letter is replaced by SMS, WhatsApp message, email, enotes, and multiple means of expressions and impressions. As the social media grew in quantity and quality, it further changed the styles of writing. Old traditional styles of writing were replaced with the new ways of writing, as is evident from the change in spells and inventions and innovations in writing. Many words were replaced with emojis also. One must say that a complete new set of vocabulary as well as styles have been found in the art of writing. Books are replaced with the blogs, PDF writing and pictorial stories on different websites. Now, a pen is no more required; the fingers and touch system has made our fingers as the new pens which can float writing endlessly. We can keep this enormous amount of writing in small memory chip and alter, edit and re-write at any time, at any place

Not only digital writings provided many new norms and possibilities of writing but also it gave birth to a greater number of writers. I must say that digital writing awakened the writer in every one of us. Face Book became the platform where an entire new generation of writers, posts, critics, commentators, and essayists came into being. Where we used to write letters, it is now email. There are many songs, movies and history preserved through writing of letters. All this charm has finished and the letter is replaced by SMS, WhatsApp message, email, enotes, and multiple means of expressions and impressions. As the social media grew in quantity and quality, it further changed the styles of writing. Old traditional styles of writing were replaced with the new ways of writing, as is evident from the change in spells and inventions and innovations in writing. Many words were replaced with emojis also. One must say that a complete new set of vocabulary as well as styles have been found in the art of writing. Books are replaced with the blogs, PDF writing and pictorial stories on different websites. Now, a pen is no more required; the fingers and touch system has made our fingers as the new pens which can float writing endlessly. We can keep this enormous amount of writing in small memory chip and alter, edit and re-write at any time, at any place. It means that writing has become not only the new time and space but also it can adjust and become plausible in any time and place.

In the beginning of 20th century, there was a multiple opinion about writing. A few believed that writing is a superior faculty of human beings and could be available to only a few and so writing was as difficult as possibly in order to make it as scholarly as possible. Though the same had a lot of good characteristics in it, but very few people could read and understand it. A common man was deprived of joys of reading because of the difficulty level in the writings. So, it was suggested in the later part of the 20th century that writing be made simple, easy and a common matter and so, like a diary, it started to grow as an art which could be utilized by anyone. But this resulted into another difficulty. The quantity had increased but the quality disappeared.

The lack of quality can be compromised because of the postmodernity in the end of 20th century because now the basic purpose is to convey rather than to convey in a scholarly and stylish manner. The writings may not be deep, but these are writings of the age. The result is that now our students are not growing into hard working hand writers but rather the people who are masters of cutting, pasting and editing and reviewing one text in multiple ways instead of being original and creative. The digital technology has taken one more step that now one does not need to write even digitally. Our voice can be recognized by computers and they can covert our voice to digital words. So, writing now is a computer art rather than a hand art. Who knows that one day, all these forms of writings would disappear and the human beings may develop some new way of expressing themselves?

The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson College, Multan. He can be reached at zeadogar@hotmail.com and Tweets at @Profzee