This week’s reading by Jay David Bolter discusses The Computer, Hypertext and the History of Writing. Amongst many things, Bolter addresses the changes we have faced from hand writing to the printing press, and from the printing press to the computer. In the beginning of the piece he describes writing as a technology for collective memory which really caught my attention – writing is super weird! As Miles asked, something i take for granted has now been made strange to me. Writing is such an integral part of our lives that it is hard to imagine a world without it and i think it is just assumed that it has always been a part of human society. Alas, no!

Writing, just like a computer and the printing press, is a technology that we have created as we felt a need for the ability to communicate on a wider scale rather that merely face to face conversation. And somehow, the idea of writing came to form… but i can’t help but think now the possibilities of what writing could have been!