new blog post - the venn diagram of where you're from and who you are

[Certain]

Originally Posted by oats

@Split I don't think literature is dying at all. The bound book yes, but not reading and writing literature. If anything technology makes people read more than ever now, though the nature of what/how we read is changing dramatically. I honestly believe short stories, novellas, and creative nonfiction are all on an upward trajectory. English is still one of the most populated majors in universities.

Like language itself, writing is transforming to meet the shorter attention spans that people have - there are so many options (for reading and for leisure in general), that most people won't finish something if they aren't instantly hooked. I've had short stories published that are ~1200 words and my professors say are great, and when I share them with other people they say TLDR. That's why input from NC is so valuable to me, because it's representative of a wider demographic than my old college profs. I think a balance can be achieved.

Mostly accurate. Split's analysis seems straight out of 1994 or 1984 (the year, not the novel) or 1974. But the Internet and handheld devices have led to a boom in terms of quantity of published writing but also in terms of reading.

What undeniably has decreased has been the subjective quality of what people are reading. It used to be that several editors would parse anything before it was published to ensure that it was good enough to engage people. Now we spend time reading Tumblr posts by pseudonym-bearing authors. That's not to say that there can't be great work in those Tumblr posts, but it's not as heavily parsed and scrutinized now that it costs nothing to publish.