The silent collapse of literary expression

As I type away, ironically, my thoughts rapidly transferring onto the computer screen, instead of quietly bleeding through onto paper, I cannot help but wonder how times have changed, and how fruitlessly convenient expressing ourselves has become. 

Before the turn of the century, perhaps even earlier, literature and expression was a mode of leisure, a recreational activity that would be the topmost choice for children and adults from far and wide. It didn’t really matter whether you were reading or writing, whether you were writing for a newspaper, or to your grandparents. It certainly didn’t matter whether you were reading the back of a cereal box, or reading that encyclopaedia you won at a science fair. It was gratifying; it was pleasure and it was nourishment in the finest way possible. 

I don’t speak for generations that have passed, but from the perspective of a millennial; someone who has experienced the joy and passion of reading and writing, which dismally deteriorated over the years and brought us to an era where we would no longer crave the smell of old books in a library, but rather listen to an audio book through the voice of someone who could never relate to the characters, or skim through pages of an e-book in attempts to save some battery life. We now live in an ‘advanced’ world where the art that comes with beautiful hand writing, and eloquent fonts have been replaced with choosing which word processor stores more dictionary synonyms than others. 

It was not too long ago when electronics could not be brought to school, when spelling was considered to be a student’s worst enemy, when trying to meet a word-count was a challenge, and when reading an assigned book would become our gateway to pleasurable reading habits. Today, we have autocorrect, so why do we have to learn those long spelling words? We have tablets and laptops, why should we focus on how neat our writing is? Read a book? Sparknotes! Indeed, it is an undeniable fact that technology has further enhanced and developed our world today; but whilst doing so, it has stripped away the finesse and importance of literary and creative bliss. There are certain things that need not be replaced, but rather reinforced, there are certain ideas that need to be triggered and not locked away. Literature whether it be in the form of reading, writing, or expression of any form needs to be done so through a natural medium, through a soulful longing, and with a passionate drive that can never be fully explored or released through technological interference. 

The decline, and the downfall of what used to be literary bliss is prevalent in multiple ways infront of our eyes; it is visible and often ignored. The unfortunate truth is that we do not write anymore, we collate, we do not read anymore, we absorb; the world we live in today is not about the pleasures and passion that come with appreciating literature and expression, but rather to spend time electronically and technologically defining our time, and the efforts of every artist past, present and future in the most abrupt, impersonal, and passive way possible. 

Artistic expression has become a distant memory, one which generations to come will consider an extinct fossil that ceases to exist.