Toby Litt describes the relationship between literature, writing, and technology as being ever-changing. In Modern times Technology is changing the ways that literature is consumed. For example, he says “The internet connection offers all of us the constant temptation of snippets, of trivia. We don’t live, as other writers did in the past, without these particular temptations… I think writers will continue to occur but technology and its trivia will cause us to lose something, just as we lost something when we lost the classical education. We write worse because we cannot write classical prose.” As technology advances the more we lose touch with the real world and write worse. Another instance he provides is that “Readers more accustomed to screens – web pages, iPhone displays – will scan a page of text for its contents, rather than experience it in a gradual linear top-left to bottom-right way. This will make for increased speed and decreased specificity. These readers will be half-distracted even as they read; their visual field will include other things than just the text, because they won’t feel happy unless those things are there.” Technology is ruining writing but in some ways, it is improving it. For instance, writing on a computer is much easier than in the past with typewriters.

Technology has not affected my perceptions of classical literature, it made it easier for me to read. The underlying issues of modern stories are that the people novels have conventionally been written about are gradually ceasing to exist. As technology advances the stories will revolve around those changes to keep up with society. Stories that are set in past times won’t relate to the audience as much.

Technology is disrupting the stories of today or the future because we are only focused on our phones. People are more focused on entertainment than books. The increase in entertainment makes writing obsolete. Books cannot compete with these various forms of entertainment. They just aren’t as interesting especially to the younger generations.

Reading on a screen or through these various interfaces does not affect my learning at all. My perception is that it makes it easier for me to access various forms of information online. I can retain the information I learned and go back to it easily if I want to refresh my memory. Reading books online feels more comfortable to me and I feel like I can understand it more. And there are various features that make annotating, highlighting, and writing notes easier.