Illustrations by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff
Arts & Culture
We used to read more, shout less
In what ways has the internet transformed fiction? 8 authors elaborate.
Fiction is ancient. Spanning from the legendary “Epic of Gilgamesh” to modern novels and stories, fiction has examined the human experience and encouraged us to contemplate beyond our own perspectives and broaden our creativity. Conversely, the internet is less than half a century old. It has drastically advanced in the past forty years and undeniably altered the way we interact, dwell, and reflect.
In these modified insights, authors from the genre discuss how they perceive the internet has transformed fiction.
Readers have transformed into audiences
Greg Jackson ’06 is the writer of multiple short stories published in The New Yorker, Granta, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. His inaugural novel, “The Dimensions of a Cave,” was released in 2023.
Fiction is inherently about one individual’s privacy confronting another. Its significance and impact hinge on the author expressing themselves with uncomfortable sincerity, articulating a bold personal truth, while the reader interprets this message in solitude. “Write as if your parents are deceased,” is the advice given to writers. Yet, in the internet era, authors must surpass this and write as if the overwhelming gaze of a massive, judgmental public does not loom. Achieving this has become increasingly challenging.
The internet — what we shorthand as social media — has converted personal preference into a matter of public enthusiasm and, often, critique. It has transformed “readers” into “audiences.” Taste has evolved into something impersonal, influenced by social influencers, likes, star ratings, tweets, and lists. Established tastemakers — critics, editors, booksellers — have seen their power eclipsed by collective opinion and viral popularity. In their absence, there are few advocates for challenging, complex, and subversive works. Writers, attentive to the whims of their audiences and the sustainability of their careers, modify their narratives to align with what they assume a broad public desires and believes. The need to surprise readers with insights they did not know they needed, with truths delving deeper than surface opinions, dissipates. Readers may well forget that this is what fiction provides.
Are there advantages? I struggle to see many, and I believe pairing the negatives with a few positives obscures what is overall a detrimental scenario. Sometimes, the net outcome is simply poor. Literature is an essential companion to self-discovery, illuminating our essence. It explores a realm of experience before politics, widespread beliefs, and automatic responses. One cannot unearth what one already understands. Fiction’s brilliant core — personal truth — may indeed emerge as the principal casualty of our era of social media.
A convenience and a distraction
Scott Turow, J.D. ’78, is an attorney and the writer of 13 fictitious and three non-fictive works, including “Presumed Innocent” and the memoir detailing his first year at Harvard Law School, “One L.”
I utilize the internet for research, and its simplicity can sometimes be astonishing. In my latest novel, “Presumed Guilty,” I researched details about the Nike Air Force 1 sneaker and the extent of cell signal travel, all in far less time than it would have taken me four decades ago. Consequently, I believe my books are likely more research-dense than they were in prior years.
Fiction operates on the premise that we can comprehend the innermost thoughts and emotions of others. That people possess an eagerness for knowledge isn’t unexpected; however, it renders storytelling a deeply ethical endeavor, as it heightens our compassion for one another. I don’t believe social media posts or emails typically possess the same depth.
Clearly, the internet vies for readers’ attention, and it’s evident that book sales began to decline when individuals began “surfing the net,” as it was once termed, when people simply surrendered to navigating the online realm. However, the internet also brings advantages, particularly the convenient availability of eBooks. Online, readers connect and distribute recommendations about the books they appreciate. Hence, it’s not entirely one-sided.
The one thing I am certain of is that the novel has endured technological evolutions since the 18th century — or even the 13th century, depending on how you trace its origins. And it’s not vanishing anytime soon.
We forfeited a significant narrative element
Jennifer Finney Boylan was the 2022-2023 Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett Schlesinger Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She is the author of 19 works, including her newest, “Cleavage” (2025), president of PEN America, and thethe inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University.
A significant narrative device once centered around individuals becoming separated, getting lost, or being unaware of their surroundings, and so forth. This specific circumstance has become quite uncommon now — especially since we’re perpetually connected to the Internet in some manner. Take, for example, the film “After Hours” (directed by Martin Scorsese), where Griffin Dunne’s cash is blown out of a taxi window one night, leaving him stranded in the city, unable to return home. Such a twist is rather infrequent these days, don’t you think? Moreover, when you reflect on it, countless remarkable tales — from the “Odyssey” to, say, “Ulysses” — revolve around characters who have become disoriented or are attempting to navigate their way back home, with challenges arising from their lack of awareness about their location or their inability to communicate their situation to loved ones.
I genuinely believe we would have been better off if the internet — along with the iPhone and its imitators — had never come into existence. We would likely spend more time engaging with one another instead of fixating on our screens. Our reading would increase, while our shouting would decrease. Is that existence markedly inferior to the reality we inhabit today?
A time machine for investigation
Julie Orringer held the position of Lisa Goldberg Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute for the year 2013-2014. She is the creator of three critically acclaimed novels: “The Invisible Bridge,” “How to Breathe Underwater,” and “The Flight Portfolio,” which tells the story of Varian Fry, a Harvard graduate and American journalist who ventured to France in 1940 to assist writers and artists blacklisted by the Gestapo. Her writings have also been featured in Granta and The Scribner Anthology of American Short Fiction, and she has been honored with The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize.
Two resources that have proven incredibly beneficial for research are online-accessible doors. One such resource is newspaper archives. Being able to access Times Machine via The New York Times, for example, is tremendously advantageous, allowing one to examine newspaper pages precisely as they were originally designed, placing articles within their proper context and enabling searchability. There was a time when researchers needed to rely on microfilm, which was quite impractical. Now, one can explore daily occurrences from specific historical periods while also encountering the context of supplementary articles, advertisements for clothing and cuisine, theatrical productions, modes of transportation, and numerous other contextual indicators to situate oneself within a particular temporal landscape.
Another equally valuable tool I’ve discovered is radio archives, as we often overlook how much of a constant fixture radio represented in people’s lives, especially while writing about the 20th century. There are numerous archives providing access to the radio broadcasts that audiences listened to on a daily basis. If one lacks an awareness of the voices that once resonated in people’s ears regarding political happenings, cultural events, and fashion trends of an era, then the complete narrative is lost.
Less time at the library, for better and for worse
Weike Wang ’11 is the author of multiple novels, such as “Chemistry,” “Joan is Okay,” and “Rental House.” She has received honors including a PEN/Hemingway Award, a Whiting Award, and recognition as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35. Her literary contributions have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories, and she has also been awarded an O. Henry Award.
I acquired my reading skills at the library. My mother would take me, where she occupied herself in the adult section, perusing job advertisements while I explored the children’s area, enjoying “Anne of Green Gables” or “Goosebumps” and engaging with the Oregon Trail. I am uncertain if the internet altered fiction, but it definitely transformed reading. Without the internet or mobile devices with internet capability, I dedicated more prolonged, immersive periods to reading. Entire days would be spent engrossed in books. Now, that is no longer feasible. Additionally, I bear more obligations, and reading has transitioned into a task rather than a form of relaxation.
The internet has certainly simplified the research process for storytelling. Rather than physically visiting the library, I can discover a plethora of information online. I can perform Google searches. I can view YouTube clips. I can also utilize Google Maps to visualize the area I am writing about. Without online access, I would have to visit the location in person. Moreover, I would need to conduct interviews with individuals if I wished to portray a character in a specific profession. Nowadays, with many individuals sharing their experiences online, writers gain easy access to this wealth of material.
We require emotional honesty too
Min Jin Lee was the 2018-2019 Catherine A. and Mary C. Gellert Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She is the author of the novels “Free Food for Millionaires” and “Pachinko,” a contender for the National Book Award, finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and included in the New York Times “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” Lee is also the recipient of the 2024 Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence.
In addition to the reality that the internet may have contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2024 Word of the Year, “brain rot,” and that neoliberalism has rendered our focus a commodity to be mercilessly exploited, I continue to foster unjustifiable optimism that narrative fiction will prevail as the foremost medium for lasting storytelling. While we appreciate nonfiction in its various manifestations, fiction possesses the unique ability to broaden our understanding of emotional truths through the lens of non-factual representations.
Broadening understanding
Andrè Aciman, Ph.D. ’88, has authored numerous New York Times bestselling works, such as “Call Me by Your Name,” “Out of Egypt,” and “Eight White Nights.” He serves as the editor for The Proust Project and lectures in comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Literature holds significance. It shapes your identity and provides insights into history and the cosmos that are otherwise unattainable. Does “Crime and Punishment” offer a deeper understanding of human nature? Certainly. What about Shakespeare? Indeed. Yet, a brief article on the internet that comes and goes? That’s the contemporary mindset, and I have no dispute with it.
In my observation, younger individuals, particularly those under 35, aside from a few exceptions, seldom read or are perpetually online, perusing news and magazines. They are acquainted with a multitude of topics that I would never have even considered. Conversely, my knowledge is limited to what I glean from The New York Times, and I don’t even engage with it very thoroughly. My children, for instance, seem to possess vast knowledge, as do their peers, yet none of them engage with books.
Some lessons ‘can solely be acquired through direct engagement’
Yxta Maya Murray currently holds the position of Walter Jackson Bate Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she engages as a law professor, author, social practice artist, and emerging filmmaker. Additionally, she is the David P. Leonard Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, focusing her legal scholarship on the interplay among law, social equity, and the arts. She has released 11 titles.
I have produced a variety of novels grounded in legal, scientific, and archival inquiry. The creation of these books would have been unfeasible for me without the internet. My 2020 publication, “The World Doesn’t Work that Way, but It Could,” is a compilation of narratives reflecting the actions of President Donald Trump reversing the administrative framework, specifically unraveling safety standards within the Department of the Interior and the EPA. I conducted legal and scientific inquiries and relied on the web for relevant reports. However, research alone cannot breathe life into the narrative. There are experiences inaccessible online that can only be acquired through direct engagement. Thus, I conducted interviews. Fiction holds paramount importance as it enables us to visualize the lives of others, fostering empathy, facilitating personal transcendence, and allowing us to see ourselves reflected. Its significance is astronomical because only a minuscule fraction of reality can be articulated, and if you confine yourself to nonfiction while striving to do an ethical job of it, you diminish the capacity to communicate the myriad facets of human experience.