Dear Digital Age

I can remember a time before you, when there was one typewriter in the office and we booked time on it, when I saw my first fax being received in an editorial office and thought ‘this will speed things up’, when I arrived on my first day at a new job as a copywriter and found a giant word processor sitting on my desk. I had to ask how to switch it on.

We learned quickly in those days (it was the late 80s). Technology came at us in a rush; suddenly we were networked, emails pinged back and forth between people in the same building, even the same room. I worked in central London in an office that published a fortnightly listing for West End theatres. We were used to couriers arriving by bike to deliver proofs, discs and hard copies of images, but now they stopped, replaced at first by emails and scanners and later by Web 2.0 which meant file sharing and interaction. Everything speeded up even more.

It was clunky for a while. I remember crouching beside my desk, coaxing the Pipex dial-up into life so that we could use the web. There were new wires to trip over, new bleeps and hums from desktops, and repeat strain injury which some of us aquired by typing too fast, too much and in the wrong position on desks and chairs not designed for the hunched intensity of the computerised office.

About 12 years ago, a young colleague of mine asked how we had accessed the internet before everyone had computers on our desks. We told him we had coped just fine. Now, I am struck by the difference you – Digital Age – have made as I gradually introduce digital media to the running of writing groups in places like community centres and village halls, places that do not necessarily have efficient wifi or even (in rural Cornwall) much of a mobile phone signal.

It strikes me too that the ‘digital natives’ who have grown up with smart phones in the palms of their hands, and laptops in every class room, would be lost without their easy access to all things web. They would have to reinvent the way they work as I am reinventing mine now. What have I noticed so far?

Apps are fun, expecially when you use them for purposes other than the ones they were designed for. More on this is a future blog…

Social media is too wide open for what is a group activity by a specific community of people. I am learning how to set up secret and private groups, which feel counter-cultural in terms of how Facebook, Instagram and others were intended to be used.

Some people are bemused by the social media others take for granted. Because I remember a time without it, I do not assume that people know what I am talking about when I suggest we use, say, Pinterest to build up a picture of a setting or a character.

Digital media takes time to set up. My preparation time in the rooms where I host writing groups has doubled. I can no longer arrive with 30 minutes to spare, set up tables and chairs, boil the kettle and set out the cups, then enjoy 10 quiet minutes with my notes, printed handouts and reading materials.

It’s heavy too. I have to carry the laptop, unpack the projector, set up the screen, plug everything in and test it, and check the wifi is working. In the room where I currently host a regular weekly session it doesn’t, but I am able to pick it up via a neighbour’s open access account.

Despite that, I am enjoying it when it goes well; I can see my toolkit expanding and I like the challenge of thinking up new ways to use the digital, and ways to combine it with traditional methods so that no one is excluded.

Thank you for that, Digital Age.

We’ll talk again soon.