Google Hangouts and Notre Dame Cathedral

I did my first successful Google hangout with Erica Oldroyd, Professor Burton (and friends), and briefly Sam Jenkins.  What a rush!  They helped me talk out my ideas for my paper, gave me more ideas on different approaches I could take, and gave me examples of how I could better organize and construct my final paper.  It is always so helpful to be able to talk out my ideas with others and get direct feedback.

Erica helped me break down my idea into three different categories.  There is the large scale, mass cultural phenomenon, the classroom, and the individual's experience with literary work through the digital media.  I aim to focus more on the changing phenomenon, that no one can read a piece of literature, or experience any of these mediums, in isolation, and how that is and should be influencing how we teach literature in the classroom.

Professor Burton took my analogy that when we try to read in isolation, it is like limiting ourselves to being in Paris looking at the cathedral, and expanded it to a broader idea.  If I understood his idea correctly, he suggested that in order to feel like we have really been to a place, to feel like we are taking something with us as we leave, we must document our travels by taking pictures.  Going even farther than that, we then feel obligated to post those pictures on Facebook, or other social media sites, in order to feel validation for having been somewhere.  Can you really say you've been somewhere without being able to relive the experience though digital proof?  He said when he went to the Notre Dame cathedral, he and his son took pictures from the top overlooking the Eiffel Tower in the distance, but he realized they never actually have record of them at the cathedral, only a view from the top.  Does that illegitimate his experience?