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The Decline of the Written Word
May 11, 2018
By: Jennifer Foster
I was surprised to learn-only just recently-that students are no longer learning to “write” in school. With computers and laptops in school, printing is about as far as the pen goes. Having completed my first post secondary degree on a typewriter-and the second on a computer in a bank of machines located in a dusty basement of the university-it made me pause to think about a world in without writing utensils.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? In the case of wills, maybe not.
Codicils were pages attached to a will that set out revised or additional instructions. In order to safeguard the intentions of the testator, the legal system created a number of requirements to be included in these pages to ensure that they would be accepted as the true word and wishes to be obeyed following her or his passing. If an attached page or handwritten amendment to the will failed to comply with these requirements, the additions would not be enforced. Additional notes attached to the will itself are invalid if they are not signed and dated in advance of the will itself.
Of course, some situations require more immediate action than a trip to your lawyer’s office. This is why I often include a paragraph in my wills to state that the testator hopes that any handwritten note created after the will be obeyed, even if not legally binding.
However, the best way to change your testamentary wishes is to ask your lawyer to make the necessary changes to your current will. Today, incorporating changes into a will is effortless with the advent of computers and word processing software. This will also give you and your lawyer to opportunity to make sure your will is drafted in accordance with any recent changes in the law or in your familial and social situations.
Sometimes the pen is not so mighty!
Please feel free to contact us with your questions related to will drafting and estate planning. We service clients from Kingston to Toronto and everywhere in between. And Ottawa too! 
Thank you for reading!
The Decline Of The Printed Word
In this modern age when a tech savvy populace has taken up wholesomely to the internet and the television set, newspapers have definitely taken a back seat. Be that as it may I firmly believe that the decline of the written word is definitely a reflection of the state of our society. Some might accuse me of prejudice as I am a fifty year old man who is still addicted to reading the newspaper over his morning cup of coffee.
There was a time around twenty-five years ago when the news in the paper happened to be a mix of many kinds of things, good and bad. We did not have so much negativity. Sensationalism was restrained and standards of ethics were followed by journalists. There used to be a strict code of conduct for journalists and false information was not spread in order to gain oneupmanship over your competition.
The standard of news topics published today has generally deteriorated in order to increase the number of readers. Quality has taken a backseat over quantity. The rigorous research behind articles, the strict adherence to ethical standards, have all been sacrificed in the altar of acquiring popularity and more readers.
When I open the newspaper nowadays there is a bevy of negative news. Bengaluru rape, Hyderabad horror, IPL scam and numerous such headlines hit the eyes striking a horrendous note about the society we live in. Is it true that nothing good at all is happening around us or is it a deliberate attempt to write only things that capture the reader’s morbid imagination? I suspect the latter.
I am not saying that crime and corruption should not be brought to people’s notice. After all what else is a newspaper for? But I feel it is in the interests of the society at large that a balance is struck between good and bad news.
Standards of books have also deteriorated. This is perhaps because people have taken to the internet in order to learn anything and everything. Ask any youngster to learn something new and the first thing he does is to search for a tutorial in google. So much so that there is talk of introducing the word googling in the dictionary. It is sad that the era of picking up a detailed book and referring to the written word for learning the finer nuances of any subject is now dying.
Mind you, I am not against technological advances, being a programmer and writer of computer code myself. I have worked on the computer field for a long time but I cannot help reminiscing about a more leisurely age when reading used to be an avowed method of learning.
What is it that has lead to this decline of the printed word? Well for one thing people are in a hurry. Television journalism has taken center stage and it brings news right into the drawing room. There are 24X7 channels that sensationalize things and serve news as a potpourri of masala and mix. People are addicted to the television sets while eating, while they are in their beds trying to sleep. In order to compete with this, the newspapers also have to resort to reprehensible tactics.
Similarly when it comes to learning, people are in a hurry to get to the root of things. When I see youngsters trying to learn a computer language, they are interested in getting to first base as quickly as possible and immediately search for the quickest means of learning without getting to know the internal plumbing which is the basis on which a computer language is built. The urge to get into the nitty-gritties of a subject which a book provides is simply not there.
The need and the itch to get a thorough understanding of topics that a book would give is missing.
Well, I might sound like an old man nostalgic about a bygone era but I assert firmly that it definitely is not good for a society to get rid of man’s ancient source of learning viz the printed word.
«There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.» ~Walter Wellesley «Red» Smith
«The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.» ~Norbet Platt
«Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.» ~Terri Guillemets
«The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.» ~Mark Twain
NPR had an episode today on its Here and Now program entitled, «Sifting Through Love Letters Of The Past«. I thought they made some interesting observations. It aired on the heels of another segment.»Postal Service Plans Thousands of Closures«, where they discussed the US Postal Service’s need to reinvent itself and thus both issues were connected. The Love Letters segment was of particular interest because it dealt with the seeming loss of the Written Word. This interesting discussion brought to the forefront of my mind the truth of how lovers now communicate. One of the reasons the Postal Service is losing business is because we now have the internet and email to communicate electronically. We have America Online, YahooMail, GoogleMail, HotMail, etc. A plethora of venues to open as many email accounts as we choose to keep track of. We no longer require the hand written note that where the time to reach the recipient is measured in days, not minutes, which has given the rise to the moniker…Snail Mail.
We can reach anyone anywhere instantly, as if email was not quick enough. We can now text a message to someone else who has a cell phone. On the computer we can INSTANT message someone to text in real time. In fact, presently we can use Skype to actually talk and video conference a person if we don’t feel like typing. With a microphone and a video cam, we can see and hear each other in real time with barely any hesitation in the connection speed. The Postal Service has been impacted from many of the free or low cost instant services. Personally, I rarely ever need a stamp. UPS, FEDex, and DHL have steadily eaten into USPS market share to deliver the products we order online. Technology has advanced at an alarming rate and many of us take it for granted. We expect the instant contact. Many cell phones can also allow video while you talk much the same way we once saw only on Star Trek or Dick Tracy.
So what has been the impact on these tech advancements? What have we lost? Well, for once, we’ve lost a means of expressing passion. I HEART U in a text message doesn’t quite do it the same way a hand written note expressing the same sentiments might. We have also lost a portion of memorabilia. I still have in a box ALL the handwritten letters I sent to my wife while deployed overseas. That was my means of staying connected. I wrote in volumes, trust me. In this same box, I also have to my knowledge all the handwritten love letters I wrote my wife when we were teen-agers first falling in love. Some are written on Braum’s Ice Cream napkins from where we both worked, met, and fell in love. I took the liberty of scotch-tapping them to plain notebook paper and putting them into a binder with the rest of the letters. I wrote poetry and poured out my feelings for her in page after page of romantic script. Our relationship was one of scandal in that she was of a particular religious faith that prohibited our relationship to the extent of risking her relationship with her own family. She chose me at the expense of all else. Her parents disowned her and she was forbidden contact with her other 7 other siblings of which she was oldest. Her church turned its back on her as did all of her friends. I am almost certain that my two grown up kids would not exist today had it not been for those letters.
Now granted, I don’t believe the human population has been subjected to any sort of risk of reduction in numbers because love letters as we know them have potentially reduced. Hormones, Hollywood, and porn will still see to that. But I do think there is a quality of life that is no longer with us when the written word has been truncated and replaced with OMG and LOL. Handwriting used to be a learned skill…a craftsmanship that was held to high regard. Calligraphy used to be a recognized art form. The one who possessed the skill of penmanship and eloquent prose melted hearts in a way that cannot be compared to the cold verbage in an email. It was personal. It meant something. Since listening to these two broadcasts, I’ve retrieved the letters from my former marriage that lasted some 17 years. They are memorabilia and keepsakes now that is so much more meaningful that your Inbox file history on GMail. Change is inevitable. There are great benefits to technology and scientific advancements. Mankind moves forward with time, but it does not do so without sacrifice…the merit of which is not presently fully understood.
Enjoy these shots of Melissa from a while back.
The Decline of Public Discourse and the Written Word, by the Z-Man.
In the 1984 book, Amusing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman argued that a particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. The written word requires the intellectual involvement of the reader. The information presented can be tested and contemplated as it is consumed. Oral communication is more immediate, as the listener cannot playback what was just said, unless it is recorded. Video is the most superficial, as the viewer is a passive participant.
The thesis was that the superficial nature of video communication was removing facts and reason from public discourse and replacing them with emotion. People will take one side or another of an issue, because they favor the people making the argument, not because they think about the facts. Politics ceases to be about facts and arguments and becomes a sales pitch, like an ad for a product. No one thinks about the claims made in the presentation, just how they feel about the presenter.
Postman was writing before the internet. He could not contemplate how that would change public communication. The internet has immediacy. In addition to the superficiality of visual communication, it now comes as a steady stream through the wide array of screens in our lives. Even if you are not on social media, you will still absorb a steady stream of small bits of information. These are intended to elicit an emotional response regarding some pubic issue.
For older people, the legacy mediums still play a large role. Old people still read physical newspapers. Radio talk shows and television still have an audience, but the audience is generally those who came of age before the internet. Old people are on-line, but they experience it as a digital form of the legacy media. At the other end of the age curve, kids get all of the information on-line. Social media, YouTube and live streams are their exclusive sources of information. …
The live stream phenomenon is similar. These are often ad hoc, with the streamer starting his stream when the spirit moves. Some are more regimented in their schedule, but they rarely start on time and they go as long as they like. The people tuning in are not looking for facts and reasoned arguments. Instead they want reassurance and confirmation. These streams have communities that exist around the live streamer. It’s virtual information and a virtual community.
Of course, it also means our public discourse must be even more shallow and superficial than what existed in the peak of the television era. It also must be even more intensely present tense. The old written information stream was an interconnected collection of facts and logic. The new information stream is a constant series of highly personalized, but disconnected bits of data intended to elicit an emotion.
Increasingly people are getting balkanized into echo chambers that only accept certain memes — the ones that make them feel good. Arguments or facts that support those memes are celebrated (even if they are nonsense), contrary ones are ignored or ridiculed (especially if they are correct).
The left did it a couple of decades ago. The result has been a pantheon of untruths that leftists like — such as the blank slate hypothesis, that gender is a social construct, that women and men are equal in everything, that all races have identical statistical properties except skin color, that climate change is predominately man-made, or that there are more than two sexes. Those memes support leftist policy goals, but are fantasies that are easily contradicted by fact. The methods used by the left to entrench these memes and forbid opposition are collectively known as political correctness. The feminists were the first modern pressure group to master the art of unpleasantness, to bully their way to the top.
Lately some on the right have taken to dabbling in the same waters. For instance, an anti-lockdown grouping formed recently. Any argument or fact is good if it argues against lockdowns, but bad otherwise. There is only one politically acceptable answer. This group have put up many bogus arguments, such as that there are huge numbers of unconfirmed infections based on biased studies or based on misreading headlines about the Iceland study, while studiously ignoring the overwhelming data that lockdowns work (especially if you close the borders). Their arguments on civil liberties are much more convincing. But when people put up obviously nonsensical arguments and selectively choose their facts, it is a sure sign that they are not giving you their real reasons.
The right used to support mass immigration, until Trump came along and up-ended the establishment right. Why did this persist for so long before Trump, when mass immigration is so obviously against the right’s electoral interests? An important factor is that the establishment right is funded by big business, who want cheap imported labor. They fund the right’s talking heads. Talk against immigration, and donations to your think tank, website, or political party are much harder to come by. Trump, of course, has his own money and didn’t care.
I imagine that big business hates lockdowns. Elon Musk certainly does. If you figure your chance of dying from COVID is small (which it is), but you’ll go bust if it continues too long, you quite understandably are anti-lockdown. Fair enough, you are arguing for your interests. But few have had the courage and integrity to say so up front, because it looks callous. Instead we get rude demonization of any facts or commentary that isn’t anti-lockdown. By the way, the Chinese are masters of employing thousands of people to set the tone on websites (the fifty-cent army). Blistering rudeness for those who oppose them, but sweetness and light for those who carry their water. That rudeness and disregard for facts are the hallmarks of a political campaign. Ultimately it repels most people, leaving the political landscape to the political warriors. Just look at the wasteland of unpleasantness and darkness that Twitter has become.
In the past two months, commenter after commenter on the non-left has fallen afoul of the anti-lockdown crew. They have to be anti-lockdown, or be called names, lose readers, and lose funding. Most have stopped pointing out the facts of covid, and are now obeying the anti-lockdown line. Their livelihoods or status/numbers are on the line! It so reminds me of the fall of sensible left commentary a couple of decades ago. Even today there are still many sensible people of the left who silently rail against nonsense like trans-men insisting they really are women, and harbor doubts over the causes of climate change, but they have no voice anymore on the left and keep their head down.
It seems we are headed for period of two polarized mobs: “if you’re not for us you’re against us!” Empirical evidence will have to take a back seat for a while. The mobs, of course, furiously deny this, and say the Science is on their side. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable TV and iPods have turned us away from the written word. Glowing streams of visual delights replaced paper and longhand letters shrank to bite-sized Facebook status updates, the theory held.
Conventional wisdom, in this case, is wrong.
A large-scale study by the University of California at San Diego and other research universities revealed what some of us have long suspected: We’re reading far more words than we used to as we adopt new technologies.
«Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet,» found a University of California at San Diego study (.pdf) published this month by Roger E. Bohn and James E. Short of the University of San Diego.
Americans consumed 3.6 billion terabytes of information last year, averaging 11.8 hours of information consumption per day. Video and videogames constituted 55 percent of those bytes, but on average, Americans read 36 percent of the 100,500 words they consume each day, according to the San Diego study, which analyzed more than 20 data sources. The study doesn’t cover writing, but a simple glance at Facebook feeds reveals that we’re almost certainly writing more than we used to, as well.
Admittedly, posting «OMG best pizza ever C U l8r» to a mix of strangers, friends and acquaintances is not the same as carrying on a lengthy epistolary relationship.
«The Internet is about the death of the written word as a means of exchange and a store of value,» writes Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., in a typical criticism. «As a method of conveying information, written words are inefficient and ambiguous…. Sounds and images are far superior … thus, textual minimalism is replacing books and periodicals.»
However, that «textual minimalism» sure adds up fast — especially considering that a decent percentage of status updates include links to longer blog posts and articles. No matter how you slice it, this San Diego study found text to be a bigger part of our lives than it was 30 years ago, when much of the internet was a mere gleam in Al Gore’s eye.
In addition, longer formats continue to be popular, despite increases in textual minimalism, competing sources of information and the general shrinkage of print magazines and newspapers — see Ars Technica’s 23-page review of Mac OS X 10.6 (1,447 Diggs, 142 on Reddit), or Glenn Greenwald’s lengthy opinion pieces (430 comments), neither of which would likely have been published by a print publication.
Meanwhile, Amazon, which seems to sell everything under the sun — including videogames, cameras and television sets — announced on Saturday that the Amazon Kindle, an eBook reader, became «the most gifted item ever in [Amazon] history» during this year’s holiday season.
The most gifted item during next year’s holiday season could well be Apple’s «iSlate» tablet, assuming rumors of its impending 2010 release are true. Say what you will about the literacy level of tweets or texts, but the position that literacy is on the decline is untenable when the most-hyped device of next year is said to be designed with free and paid-for electronic text — especially magazines — in mind.