When I spoke at the Norman Mailer Society Conference in 2005, I was asked to discuss the position of literature and English Studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century, how the work of Norman Mailer fit into these cultural and intellectual trends, and recommend ways that the Society might continue to flourish in a still incunabular information age. In 2005, books and the system that supported their publication still reigned supreme; thus US alone published 282,500 new titles, about 40,000 of which were fiction. Also in the fall of 2005, The Facebook, a successful social networking site for colleges and universities, had just launched its version for high schools; it was still a year away from opening its digital doors to the world’s Internet users, but it already showed the growing popularity of Web 2.0 applications and their integral foundation of community built on members’ affinity. And in 2005, the world had not yet heard of an iPhone; its launch wouldn’t be for another year and eight months.

In my talk, I highlighted the growing disparity between our play on the internet and our serious work as literary scholars and aficionados. I advocated flexibility and patience to help us through this transition from atoms to bits. I suggested that it’s up to us canon builders to decide what’s important, in Toni Morrison’s words, to “pass on” in both senses: that is, what needs to be preserved and emphasized for the coming generations and what it is we can safely leave behind. If anything, our digital lives — with their ever-increasing glut of information — blurs this distinction not only for us, but especially for those who have never know a world without the Internet.

So at the end of this century’s first decade, where are we? In the middle of March 2010, more people visited Facebook than Google, and by July the number of active users on Facebook had grown to 500 million. Facebook might be the apotheosis of the Web 2.0, but in its most insipid form. The idea of the Web 2.0 began as a reaction to static web pages. It proponents argued that the web should be user-centered and less like the printed page. Sites should be dynamic, allowing the users to participate, to contribute, and to collaborate. Web sites should be only frameworks, giving users the space to and tools for sharing their affinity with photography, video, books, cooking, and any other topic you can think of. However, since my discussion of the Web 2.0 in 2005, something shifted in its focus, and it might be blamed on Twitter, introduced in the summer of 2006. Twitter, as you know, allows users to follow other users’ “tweets,” or streams of SMS-like messages limited to 140 characters. Many users of Twitter attempt to focus on a topic, but according to Pear Analytic research firm, the dominant content of tweets is “pointless babble” — you know, the nonsense that makes up most of our lives. About Twitter, Bruce Sterling states, “Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite the Iliad.” I would argue that Facebook seems to replace the topic-centered Web 2.0 with Twitter’s “pointless babble,” turning it into the ubiquitous “social media.”

In light of the Facebook revolution of the Web, even more voices are speaking out that lament the ostensible death of traditional literacy. More so, as the research of UCLA Professor of Psychiatry Gary Small suggests, reading the web is actually rewiring our brains. His findings will probably be no surprise to us: “When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain.”

Reading on the web — probably the most popular form of reading done off a computer screen — is not the same thing as reading a novel. Something about the computer — even a laptop — inspires a cursory, quick, and superficial consumption of text. Perhaps it’s because it looks more like a television than it does a book? Perhaps it’s because we have to lean forward, rather than lean back? Perhaps we are trained that what comes to us through a monitor should be consumed in a certain way, whereas that which is found on leaves in a cloth binding must be absorbed in another way. In many ways, books — especially novels — are like holy artifacts; computers, to paraphrase Norman Mailer, are machines of the devil.

I still hear people say that they can’t proofread or edit on a computer screen. There’s something about the printed word on a physical sheet of paper that allows our minds to take it more seriously than we would something appearing on a computer screen in a web browser. Seriously, I’m pretty sure I could never read a book on a PC.

Perhaps it’s the notion that what we see on the computer screen is somehow transient and impermanent — that it can disappear with a flick of a switch or the press of a key. Books sit heavily on shelves. They are weighty matter that can be handled and not so easily disposed of. Until recently, the idea of publishing was like, in Gilgamesh‘s words, “having one’s name stamped in bricks.” If you were mentioned by a poet, you achieved a kind of immortality. “Literature” deserves this treatment, after all. It is weighty. It matters. It should be in books, not on computer screens. Sven Bickerts in the The Gutenberg Elegies echoes this sentiment: “our entire collective history — the soul of societal body — is encoded in print. Is encoded, and has for countless generations been passed along by way of the word, mainly through books” (20). This is significant, no?

Birkerts goes on to lament what he sees as an inevitable paradigm shift away from print to the digital. His observation seems to agree with Small’s research: the Web is destroying our ability to read in a significant way.

Not only is our reading changing because of our digital lives, but also our writing. According to Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times, “Book publishing is simply becoming self publishing.” Based on numbers from the Bowker bibliographic company, she reports that 764,448 book titles were produced by self-publishers, 45,000 of which were fiction titles. Inexpensive digital-publishing technologies and print-on-demand companies make professional-looking books — complete with dust jackets and ISBNs — within any aspiring author’s reach. Waning are the days, too, of the stigma of the self-published, since many are finding commercial success without the hassle and frustration of dealing with the traditional publishing industry gatekeepers. Therefore, if anyone can publish a novel, is our access to digital technologies also destroying what we read?

These significant changes are not the only technical revolution to happen since 2005. Apple introduced the iPhone in January 2007, and the first model was available six months later. Not only has the iPhone made a significant shift in the cellular phone market, but it has also changed the way that many of us interact with our information, so much so, that Wired recently proclaimed “The Web Is Dead.” They argue that while information access is on the rise, how users get that information is changing from the Web to apps, like those Apple sells for its iPhone. These apps are smaller, sleeker, faster, and more specific to the task: they are about “getting,” not “browsing.” With technologies like push notifications, that information users want is delivered directly, rather than the user going out to find it. With the great success of the iPhone, Apple later released what might arguably be called the most popular and successful consumer device of the last couple of years: the iPad.

With the iPad, we can finally sit back again, like we would with a novel. The iPad is made for visually rich content; the user experience is more encompassing — applications use the entire screen, blocking out other distractions. Photographs and videos look beautiful; games are a new experience, but it’s the text applications that really won me over, so much so that I started cutting up some of my older and decaying books — particularly novels — to give them a new life. Welcome to the Novel 2.0.

If you don’t know, Emurse (an anagram for résumé, kinda) is a Web 2.0 site that will host an online résumé (or in my case, a cv) with your own custom URL: mine is http://grlucas.emurse.com/. They have created very easy-to-use forms for entering information, and everything is easily customizable. Yes, they are set up for business people, but I was easily able to all six pages post of my vita with the tools they make available. The output is professional and elegant, and viewers can download my vita or browse it online. And all of this is included in the free version!

Now, they have added a profile for all accounts. Think of this as an informal cover letter on a professional-looking web page. With the profile (here’s mine), users can list even more particulars about themselves — items that would be more appropriate for a cover letter, rather than a résumé. For example, I’m able to write a short biography, include links to my web sites, provide details about the kinds of jobs I might be looking for, and even answer some interview questions. Too cool. This is an awesome service.

One detail I’d like to see: more area searches for jobs. They include a place for your zip code in your profile and your account information. By supplying it, the system can target your area for jobs that might be applicable for your qualifications. However, I think they should have places for providing several zip codes. Yes, it makes sense to have your current one listed, but what if I’d like to move? So far, that’s my only request. That, and of course, I’d like to see it more cv-friendly for academics.

As soon as I can afford it, I’m going to send them $25 for the pro account. keep up the good work, Emurse.

Since I have been teaching critical thinking implicitly all semester, and now explicitly with Barnet and Badau’s book, Standpedia has great potential for me as an educator. I have come up with an initial assignment that my students are beginning today. We’ll see how they do soon enough.

Since my reader is all new, I have been reading a bit more. I’ve discovered a couple of sites worthy of mention.

The first is Solution Watch, a site that “surveys the new generation of the web, reviewing and providing in-depth walkthroughs of today’s best products and services.” Great idea. A current entry addresses educational solutions for tech-savvy educators and students. Many of these I knew about (and some I use), but I am happy to see that inroads are being made into an online grade book, something I’ve been wanting for a while, not just for my own use, but as a place where students can view their progress at any time.

Chalksite looks like an excellent solution, with one huge drawback: apparently the creators do not understand that teachers (including most professors) make next to nothing, so making us pay for this service seems a bit ridiculous. Teacher! looks like it has potential, but is still apparently in the beta phase, and they are not presently taking new accounts. I might try Engrade.

Also linked off of Solution Watch’s report is Emurse, the web-based résumé creator with an unfortunate name. I got an account so I can post my vita. I mean, who knows when having an online vita might come in handy? Emurse allowed me to create a cv from scratch, and when I’m finished, I’ll be able to post it online. It even allows me to password protect it, if necessary. I’m right in the middle of porting my cv, but so far Emurse is working well. I may even pay the few bucks to get more templates.

It seems like Emurse would be great for teaching professional or technical communication, too.

To me, this is what the Interenet should be: slick applications and plenty of server space, especially for applications that have bridged the gap between the world of paper commnication and digital networks. It seems that programmers and those web 2.0 startups are finally starting to get it. While a word processor used to be where I spent most of my time on a computer, Firefox now occupies the front position on my monitor. With sites/applications like Flickr, Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, YouTube, Digg, FeedBurner, and all those Google resources — Gmail, Calendar, Analytics, Notebook, Videos, Reader, Bookmarks, Help (thanks for the link) — using the Internet is actually exciting again. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I launched a word processor, and I’m an English professor!

I’m happy to say that my Mac has been Microsoft-free for over a year now. Much of this I credit to Apple, but lately, Google and those others I’ve just mentioned have eclipsed Apple as the true software innovators. Apple, what have you done for me lately? .Mac? Pluh-leese. Google might have replaced Apple as my favorite tech company. A shame, but damn they deserve it.

Writely is presently not taking new members until they’ve moved to Google servers, but you can bet I’ve asked to be notified.

Another recent discovery is Del.icio.us, a bookmark storing and sharing site. They call it “social bookmarks.” Anyway, it allows users to post bookmarks and tag them, much the way Flickr allows the tagging of photos with keywords. This system is pretty cool, since it lets me to store my bookmarks so that I can easily access them from any computer I happen to be on. I also like the popular tag listing, something I found the next item on.

Finally, check out Denise Wakeman’s “16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog.” Some of the suggestions are common sense, while others are not so obvious. One that all should take to heart: blog daily. I have been so bad about that one. A good reference.