Journal Entry #6 Falyn Tover

Mobility is something very prominent in our society today. Mobile technologies such as laptops, phones, and MP3 players allow for people to read and listen to media and news when on the move. Mobility also allows for people to write when traveling. As spoken about in the article, many mobilities researchers find that traveling allows for one to gain knowledge. An example would be a quote from Thomas Cook, who stated that, “Travel provides food for the mind.” Rojek also stated that, “Up there [in an airplane] one is, as it were, suspended from earthly cares. Looking down from above the clouds one cannot avoid thinking.” Mobility changes writing by allowing for writers to connect, collaborate, and search.

            These quotes struck me with the idea that mobility allows for writers to gain more knowledge and creativity, therefore affecting their writing in a positive way. Traveling and mobility has allowed for writing to become more cultured and informative. As described in the article, writers often enjoy seeing things rather than listening in order to be informed. When these writers are able to travel and gain knowledge by seeing, they create their own opinions and interpretations of information. I think that this changes writing in the way that everyone is able to write about their own unique experience that they gained by mobility.  

            Mobility also allows for other writers to connect with each other. Writers are able to communicate through email, social networking, and more.  By doing this, writers are able to communicate and bounce ideas off of each other. They are also able to share their findings and information, which also affects writing.

            When writers are using a form of mobility, they are able to collaborate. An example of this would be Wikipedia. Wiki allows for multiple writers to contribute to a certain topic. This changes writing because instead of one person writing their ideas on a subject, we are able to get a conglomeration of multiple ideas. Mobility allows for writers who might not be physically near each other, to contribute to each others writing.

            Finally, Mobility allows for writers to search things. This affects our writing because writers are able to research and look up information that would make their writing better. This has changed our writing for the better in my opinion. Authors are able to become knowledgeable when on the move, which makes their writing more informational and often times enjoyable.

Violet Soliz JR #6

“Mobility” has been redefined again and again over time. The course of time has brought many forms of writing: permanent symbols drawn on Mesopotamia cave walls during 3000 BCE, handwritten letters that were made popular during the Belles-Lettres rhetoric period, and instantaneous texts sent through modern-day cell phones. The first form of writing, the use of ancient symbols on mainly cave walls, was permanent. Handwritten letters improved mobility of writing immensely because it was a new form of person-to-person communication, made popular with reading and writing being available to all social classes and not just the elite. Texts, an instantaneous form of messaging via cell phones, changed the speed of person-to-person communication, and therefore its mobility.

Handwritten letters, regarded by many during its prime time as a valued form of art, took days, sometimes weeks depending on location, to be received by the intended receiver. At their pinnacle, the mobility of letters was useful as direct communication but at moments untimely. Now, in a technological society, texts are the norm for direct, person-to-person communication. Texts take seconds to send and instantly are received by the intended receiver, giving the receiver a notification on their cell phone. The length of time for how long it takes a text to send does not matter on location. With that being said, there are exceptions to the common rule. For example, those who send text messages abroad may experience a delay due to if their cell phone plan allows abroad text messages, and if so for usually high rates and slow service. In this example, easy and convenient mobility of a text message has changed into a more time consuming and costly form of communication. To combat this, emails are a popular form of direct, person-to-person communication. Emails have high mobility because like a text, they are instantaneous and take little time to be received. My father is in the Navy and works directly for President Obama. As part of his job, he travels very frequently all over the globe to coordinate events and security for Obama. To communicate with me, he always sends emails via a tablet or laptop. Texts can usually only be sent via cell phone, so the various methods of sending an email account for its high mobility as well.

Mobility has changed writing over the course of time with new forms. Each new form of writing increases its speed and convenience. Without mobile writing, information would take days, even weeks, to be published.

Journal 6 Carly Gillingham

Putting the discussion of mobility of writing into the context of traveling, like Molz does, is very apt. Molz discusses how travel blogs and message boards have become very popular as travelers increasingly utilize technology for writing, and how travelers have also led to the use of website for finding couches to crash on or hostels. The book was written in 2010, so social media has advanced quite a bit. Nowadays, these travel message boards tend to be Instagram or Twitter accounts. I know a girl who runs a travel Instagram account, and connects with fellow travellers through posting about her own experiences. The concept of websites for hostels has also advanced. Airbnb is an extremely widely used website for renting out rooms in people’s homes. Hostelworld is a website that is exclusively for youths seeking out hostels to stay in while in vacation. So this idea of mobility in writing is essential for frequest travelers, who depend on reviews and recommendations of others, which are published on these media, for finding places to stay. Having access to Wi-Fi through mobile devices (tablets, smartphones, etc.) becomes a necessity when traveling. This is a great example of how mobility has changed writing.

A few of the people who have already posted have mentioned the way that writing on social media can be helpful for travellers, too. For example, people like to share their experiences on social media by writing about them. Many people that I know who did semesters abroad or exchange programs started blogs, where they updated their friends and family every week or so. Not only is this a great way to share one’s experiences, but it is also essential for maintaining relationships with loved ones back home. A few decades ago, if someone were to study abroad, maintaining a romantic relationship would be difficult at best; the student’s parents would have been limited in knowing their child was safe. Now, through these different types of mobile writing, studying abroad does not mean a semi-permanent goodbye to your loved ones. These pieces of writing in which experiences are shared are also a great way to encourage others to travel.

Journal Post 6

Like Molz suggests in the beginning of her article, writing and travel has always had a very symbiotic relationship. The two can very often go hand-in-hand and enhance one another. And although mobility has somewhat changed writing, I believe writing has changed mobility as well. No longer do we go on vacation and bring back pictures to share with friends and family. Now we update statuses, post blogs, and exchange postcards in each picturesque town we encounter. It has almost become a requirement to share your experiences through some sort of medium so others can feel as though they are apart of your journey as well. I think that it is very common for someone to travel and feel introspective which would drive them to write out their thoughts, experiences, and emotions. Mobile writing highlights our need to be both alone and connected. Travel has become an increasingly connected activity as people write and share their personal experiences with people through books, blogs, videos, apps, and more. Each traveler can provide more insight on a particular location for prospective travelers or those wishing to live vicariously through people taking on adventures they cannot. As social media takes over the world, it has become very evident that these trips are not as solitary as they once were. However that fact is not necessarily all bad; with an increase in communication, families can rest assured that their loved ones traveling abroad are safe. Additionally followers of a particular traveler can provide recommendations, ideas, or activities that the traveler may not have known about. An influx in sharing can bring to light hole in the wall restaurants, stores teeming with locals, and off the path locations for potential travelers. I still do believe that no matter how connected traveling may seem, a part of it will always be individualistic. We will always have time on the train to kill where we will pick up a book or write about our experiences in our travel journal-- only to be seen by our eyes. We will always have the experiences, views, and memories too vivid and bold to pin down on paper. Travel will always exist as both an individual journey as well as a time spent sharing with ones close to us.

Journal Reflection #6-Jenna Kelley

In her article, “Connectivity, Collaboration, Search”, Jennie Germann Molz discusses the importance of mobilizing texts. Molz describes that mobility has the ability to create communities through connectivity. She focuses mainly on travel bloggers as she states, “interactive travellers, in a similar way, use the premise of sharing knowledge not only as a way of finding or sharing travel information about the world, but as a way of organizing themselves as a mobile knowledge community” (98). She zeroes in on travel bloggers because since they are mobilizing themselves, and are posting about it. They are mobilizing their knowledge through writing, especially by using mediums like internet café’s, GPS data, location-aware mobile platforms, etc.

I can relate to this notion because, for example, my sister traveled to Uganda, Africa. The only way she was able to share her travels with us in the moment was to travel to an Internet café and pray that they had WIFI. What are highlighted through mobilization with writing are connectivity and how many different mediums one can be reached on. Me, as writer, just bringing my laptop with me to a different city and blogging about my travels is a mobile way to connect with others.

Mobility has changed writing, because now that we discussed how it highlights connectivity, we can elaborate the idea of networking. Molz says, “I find this social logic behind mobility and knowledge intriguing, in part because of the rich collaborative and technologically mediated model it suggests for researchers developing mobile methodologies” (92). Writing through mobility has changed because it now creates a way for those to reach out to others. For example, someone can look up and airbnb or hostel and network by reaching out to a host online. Next thing you know, that individual can be sleeping at the host’s house or complex because of the mobility of writing. Also writing has changed the way people think about something. Through mobilization, tourists would record their observations and deliver them back home. With this being the case, their family and friends back home gain a sense of ‘an epistemological individualism’, whereas, they create a world for themselves that they have not even witnessed yet. All in all, mobility has changed the way we write through networking connectivity, the developing mobile media that is being created, and the idea of creating preconceived notions from seeing somewhere through mobilized writing before physically being there.

Journal Reflection 6

I find Molz' discussion regarding travel bloggers very relevant to the question, “how has mobility changed writing?” Molz discusses how travel bloggers write, with acute details, all about their travelling experiences, and how many times, although these blogs are most often published for the public to see, they are not hugely read by people other than those in the author’s close circle. I think in some ways, mobility has made people eager to publish everything about their lives and experiences on the Internet, more so than ever before. But at the same time, history has shown that people have always written things down, whether for informational purposes or just for personal musings.

         I think mobility has changed the way people feel about publishing what they do. The Internet and digitized media have created in people a sense of urgency in sharing information about their lives and experiences. This has its pros and cons. But the sharing of these writings from travellers, or anyone with shared experiences really, has completely changed the way people prepare for an experience like travelling.

         The mobility of information has also changed the way writing is written—people no longer need to go out and buy a book to obtain information on the subject they’re trying to learn about, for the information they seek is often at the tip of their fingers on a Google search bar. And so, the information that before would have only been found in a travel guide, for instance, can be found within so many different mediums now, like discussion boards or the travel sites Molz mentioned in the readings.

         I think the mobility of the 21^st century highlights how many different ways writing can be applied to the same purpose. People are constantly innovating new and improved ways to most effectively relay information for themselves and other people to use. For example, the information someone might find in a travel guide could be used by a person set to prepare every piece of information they could possibly need for a trip. This same information might be found in a discussion board or an app like Yelp for a traveller making travel decisions on the go.

Journal Reflection #6

The rise of mobility through mobile technologies such as portable laptops, smartphones, and GPS devices has changed the way people communicate, and has opened the doors for entirely new genres of digital media such as travel blogging and apps that, for example, connect backpacking communities or “couch surfers”. 

Mobility now allows travelers (and the public in general) to use internet-based outlets to post about their experiences, whether it be photos, text snippets, or full-length accounts of a particular place or event. The ability to share writing on the move increases connectivity between people around the world. Mobility has changed writing by making it accessible to everyone with few to no limits—you can send a tweet from halfway across the globe with a simple data or Wi-Fi connection. You can update your Facebook status or post a blog entry while boarding a plane to Africa, and a web user enjoying the content from the comfort of their home wouldn’t know the difference. Writing has also become more informed, as it is easier to obtain accurate information at previously unprecedented speeds through sites like Google and Wikipedia—all available with the touch of a few buttons on a mobile phone or computer. 

Mobility highlights the fact that writing can translate to any and all contexts, whether it be read from the digital screen of an iPad or in print from a textbook or magazine. Mobility gives writing a new immediacy that wasn’t present in the age of print-only texts or, more recently, the era of the clunky desktop computer. With phones and laptops, a wealth of information is available to us at our fingertips, at home or on the go. As stated by Molz, however, it could be said that the widespread adaptation of mobility has made this feat of vast connectivity seem somewhat less remarkable. Writing has assumed a new aspect: mobile flexibility, and it’s difficult to remove yourself from this perspective in this day and age. We have become so accustomed to having any text we could possibly want available in seconds that we forget that writing didn’t always have the same level of mobility.