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Literature and Digital Age: Flipping the Coin by Damilola Oladimeji (@DamiOladimeji)

Sighs...this follows every thought about world's reading culture as it plunges. Sometimes one does not even know what to tag as a cause to such setback. While we can consider money as a problem, distraction from the 'spoilers' that technology churns out to society is complicit. People spend a lot of time surfing the internet just for the fun of it and time is not much of a faithful friend. It leaves if you can't keep pace.

The Digital Age a Curse to Literature?

No and Yes. This depends on every user. It can be a curse to writers if users would rather go for pirated copies that could be downloaded for free instead of purchasing original copies. It could be a curse if everyone gets infected by the virus that despises reading and time and wants bury books in films of dust.

The Internet Age can also be a blessing to both. There are platforms like Amazon, Kindle, Wattpad, etc. where emerging authors can publish their works if they are too fed up by the beads of sweat that traditional publishing adorns them with. Potential buyers can access books anywhere in the world once published on this platform.

Flip this publishing and easy access advantage and you will see a little danger as well. No doubt, there are incredible voices and talents among the starlings of the literary sky, however, if care is not taken, it might also be a place where stones hang in the stars' wooling. It's a place we get authors who publish hasty stories full of plot holes, poems that taste so insipid to the mind that the head assumes the dance of a dog's tail, which means something ironical to what inspires the tail.

Research and the Internet

With a lot of access to sources and ideas for books, it wouldn't sound right to regard the internet as a curse. But what about the flailing minds that run from the research page to the internet? Some spend hours wandering the internet for something they can get from libraries in minutes, all because the mind does fix to the purpose. Sometimes, something that will pique one's interest, but different from their agenda can even pop up. It takes a disciplined mind to not be lured by the wiles of the cloud devil.

What's your view about the Internet and Literature? Flip the coin.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Damilola Oladimeji on Twitter @DamiOladimeji.