Organizations will have a workforce with almost no experience of the tactile sensations of creation of words. If a virus or a failure of electricity were to occur, the workforce could become completely immobilized. Workers have a much wider access to large amounts of information, but there is a strong disincentive to stay focused on a single task for a long period of time while reading on a screen, even when a Kindle reader: "Amazon has already released a version of the Kindle software for reading its e-books on an iPhone, which is much more conducive to all manner of distraction. No doubt future iterations of the Kindle and other e-book readers will make it just as easy to jump online to check your 401(k) performance as it is now to buy a copy of on Beauty. (Johnson 2009). The workforce may be more educated in a shallow fashion because of its ability to Google large quantities of information, but may be less fluent in the ability to write original copy, rather than merely replicate text.
The deficit of creative hands-on technology will not necessarily make it easier for creative writers and designers to profit, as unpaid bloggers have replaced traditional advertising talent at organizations. Rather than taking years to write the great American novel, writing the new great international blog sensation is the dream of every amateur author. Companies have monetized blogs by encouraging bloggers to write positive reviews about their products for free, in exchange for free samples. Although bloggers must disclose such relationships, this acts as another disincentive to pay for writers to create original advertisements.
The divide between the technologically fluent world and those who lack access to technology, between those who profit from information economy and those who live through hands-on manufacturing of products will grow to the point where even their mutual understanding of what it means to be human may have fundamentally changed. The death of writing and reading suggests a dismal future for literature and higher-level literacy, even while more and more people read and write online as part of their daily tasks. Internationally, it seems that people who are online can communicate more easily, across borders and languages, yet technology has also created roadblocks to fully using the expressive power of the written language. Only if organizations aggressively promote literacy and reading books as a critical workplace skill can the death of serious reading and written creation be prevented.
References
Gordon, Andrea. (2010, December 9). The death of handwriting. Parent Central.
Retrieved March 8, 2010 at http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/schoolsandresources/article/736263 -- the-death-of-handwriting
Johnson, Eric. (2009, December). How the e-book will change the way we read and write.
The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 8, 2010 at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html
