Does Digital Technology Make Us Better Storytellers? – Sheridan Dastrup

Technology has the potential to aid us in creating better stories. I wouldn’t say that it makes us better storytellers because you have to have a story and the way to tell it before you can apply it to technology. Technology has increased the mediums that we can produce stories on and how many ways we can any story. We now have the ability to show a story, audibly tell a story, write a story, visually graph a story, research a story, comment on other people’s stories and get the story out within minutes of producing it. This creates a lot of potential and a lot of great ways to involve readers/ viewers into the stories. A lot of people are able to use this to their advantage to enhance their stories. Many people have made livings out of being able to master various mediums.

Part of the reason that technology in and of itself does not make us better storytellers is because it also creates laziness. Technology has changed so much of what can be considered “published” writings. Before technology came on the seen in order to be published in a form that more than just you and those around you would see you had to be an author in the traditional sense of the word. Now, everything that someone thinks can be found on the internet, published for the entire world to see. The everyday person can write about their breakfast, they can make a video on their cat being chased by a bunny, they make a recording of themselves, and use any of the mediums that can really enhance storytelling as a whole to just document event.