Digital technology has become a major factor in the way texts are read. Through digitized texts, works are able to be manipulated, edited, and accessed from any location that has Wi-Fi. It only takes one look at popular social media sites or current youth text messaging to see how writing is being influenced by digital technology. Because of this technology, it is no longer solely about print; images are playing a greater and greater role within texts and the way that people read and interpret them.

There seems to be no limit to the leaps and bounds which technology can and is taking. A perfect example of this is the video by Pranav Mistry. Through his use of technology he has been able to seamlessly merge the digital world with the physical in a way that is both efficient and beneficial to society. This technology is not limited to the context of hardware, software and humans, but also to the modification of man into machine: cyborgs. This can already be seen in the medical field with advanced prosthetics and the use of computer chips to receive instant medical information. Most of this sounds like an excerpt from William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic,” but his visionary world is not impossible to imagine.

Gibson paints a world that is heavily impacted by technology, examples being the characters Molly and Jones. Johnny’s character succinctly sums up the developments of the information age stating “We’re an information economy. They teach you that in school. What they don’t tell you is that it’s impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information. Fragments that can be retrieved, amplified.” This successfully brings into question important subjects such as privacy, identity, and dossiers which are modern issues amplified by digital technology.