A Writing/Reading/Texting Revolution

I'm reposting a message I received from a great listserv (techrhet, which means technology and rhetoric, the list where I find out all the cool stuff about technology).

One of the major list participants, Nick Carbone, noted SEED magazine's article called "A Writing Revolution," which he found via Andrew Sullivan's The Atlantic blog "The Daily Dish," a post he called "We're All Authors Now" (starting to feel like nested Russian dolls, huh? That's the power of the interwebs and the power of "reach" and "speed" as Laura Gurak once said).

Here's what Carbone sent to the list (emphasis added):

The key claim: Nearly universal literacy is a defining characteristic of today’s modern civilization; nearly universal authorship will shape tomorrow's.

The article measures the rate of authorship from 1400 to the present age, with a graph to show rates of change in authorship. It defines authorship as having a 100 readers. So one who tweets to a 100 follows, or writes an email like this to lists with over a 100 members, is counted as an author.

The analysis unfortunately includes some cyber-enthusiasm that makes some claims that stretch the argument too far, like this example of what seems to be a logical fallacy: "When United Airlines refused to reimburse a musician for damaging his guitar, the offended customer posted a song online—“United Breaks Guitars”—and United’s stock dropped 10 percent." -- is that Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc?

There's no doubt more to pick at, but the chart and the measures of writing growth, and the fact digital technologies provide at least the potential for every writer to find at least a 100 readers (there's no guarantee that will happen) is very cool to see.