Digital Narrative

The majority of my life has been influenced by the digital world. I can barely remember a time when there was not a computer or a television on in the background. I remember very few papers that I had to actually write out by hand. Most of my teachers would have failed the paper if it was not typed. With the invention of computers, I feel as if my habits in writing and learning have changed with the invention of the computer and laptop. There are many aspects of these two activities that I could not imagine doing without my laptop like writing a paper or a story, taking notes, and research.

One thing that has been made easier by the invention of computers was how I approached writing a story or a paper. I have one hand-written copy of one story that I wrote when I was very young. I feel as if this is something that I need to save as an artifact of what the writing world used to be like. Since this one story, all of my writing has been done on a computer. I love being able to save my documents right to my computer; it saves space. I also like that I am able to add characters in between other sentences and characters. This saves time and leaves room for mistakes that can be easily corrected with a simple addition of a few letters or sentences. Another positive of the Word Processor is the addition of the Spell Check. However, I feel as if that has made me a worse speller because I get to rely on the computer to fix all of my mistakes. It has, in some ways, retarded my confidence in my own knowledge of grammar because the computer is not always right. And when that jagged green line shows up under one of my sentences I always have to question myself as well as the computer. Sometimes it is very difficult to decipher if the computer or my raw knowledge is correct. The beauty of using a computer to write papers or even stories is in the fact that there are so many other resources available. It is easy for me to pull up the internet and check a fact or select a name for one of my characters. The multiple resources available to me as I use my computer to write just make everything easier for me.

Computers have made writing and learning for me easier because I am able to take notes with my laptop. I have made a complete circle on this point. When I first arrived here at BYU the fact that I had a laptop, and I could bring it to class with me was very appealing. My laptop allowed me to take notes faster than I could write, but it also exposed me to the internet and other computer distractions like games. I found that I spent more time surfing the web rather than paying attention. This semester, I have made a conscious decision to leave my laptop at home and use spiral notebooks to take notes. I have found that I tend to pay more attention to the class discussions because I do not have as many distractions. I like taking notes with my outdated pen and notebook; I think that my notes are better because I only have enough time to write down the most important facts. I have found that by doing this, I am able to go back through my notes and recall the smaller facts associated with the more important ones that I had written down. I feel as if this challenges me to be more aware and awake in my classes.

My last point is about the ease of research that computers have made available to me. My mother always told me how lucky I was that I had the internet to do all of my research on. When she was younger she had to go to the library to do all of her research. I believe she called it the card system. Technology has changed so much from her time that I cannot even comprehend what a card system could even be like. I like it this way; I like being able to have information at my fingertips. It makes writing papers much easier. I learned the importance and my dependence upon my computer as I was forced to complete a library assignment this semester. I had to look through microfiche for hours before I found the article that I needed for my class. I was extremely frustrated and almost quit halfway through, determined that I could find the same article online somewhere. This experience made me understand my mother and her experiences with research and appreciate the ease of the internet when I research. I never want to have to look through another reel of microfiche ever again. When I am writing my stories on my lap top it is convenient for me to be able to look up information about places and foods so that I can better write a scene that I may never have experienced before. I am also able to pick out names for my characters by sifting through baby names websites.

In conclusion, I interact with the digital realm on a daily basis mostly for writing and studying. I appreciate growing up in my generation and being able to use the internet to make my life easier. My laptop is important, if not essential, to my ability to write papers and research for the same papers. I think that I would be lost trying to write a paper without a Word Processor correcting me as I wrote. Computers have changed the way that I go about my schoolwork when I write, study, or research.