Miriam's recap post!

Out of all the different types of digital literature we looked at this semester, my favorite was the Humans of New York section of the class. The journalist side of me loves reading real sto-ries about real people and hearing about their own perceptions of their experiences. I loved seeing the pictures that went along with the stories too. I’d never heard of it before, but now I read HONY regularly, so I’m grateful that this class introduced me to that. I think in the future, we’re going to continue to stray from “traditional” reading. As much as I love having a physical book in my hand, many people prefer reading online, even if it’s not something interactive or specific to digital literature. The main problem with this, I think, is that it will leave behind people who can’t afford a computer or doesn’t have access to the Internet. If digital literature becomes the main source of reading and writing, it will make access to litera-ture more difficult, thus creating a bigger divide between people who can afford to read it and those who can’t. It’s often marginalized communities who live in lower socioeconomic status areas, due to a number of reasons, but I think that if literature continues down this route and becomes exclusively digital, it will create problems. That being said, I also think that there are a lot of benefits to digital literature, and I think if we continue to develop it, it can do a lot of good in society. As we talked about with the VR, it could help with empathy and help people understand others’ struggles to some extent, which could lead to actual change with social justice issues. I also think it’s beneficial to experience different types of media. Hopefully, as it becomes more widespread, it will also become more accessible to underprivileged people. In regards to journalism, since I am an aspiring journalist (or lawyer, who the hell knows?), I think that VR could be especially useful in war journalism since it’s such a difficult subject to convey in words. I have a special appreciation for the written word. I’ve always been and al-ways will be a “the book was better” type person, but that being said, I can see situations in which digital medias could better serve this purpose. Hearing about horrors going on in other parts of the world is always difficult to hear about, but I think it’s also easy to read about and then forget. It doesn’t always stick with us. I think the only way to truly comprehend the gravi-ty of these situations is to be immersed in it to some extent, and I think that VR may be the only way to accomplish that. This goes back to the idea of VR being an “empathy machine”, which as I discussed in my last post, I both agree and disagree with.