We are society and the things that affect it. Literature influences change in society because we are interdependent. We continue to learn from the creative work of others, even those hearsay, myths, and other forms of literature alike.
Our view of how literature influences society may be obstructed if we limit the scope of literature to written works alone. We can have them as oral or written, or a combination of both.
Considering this fact, we will go on to discuss the influence of literature on society from a not far-fetched view of social media, where there are innumerable well and badly concocted literary works that in several ways affect all users.
Social media is one case study for how literature influences change in society.
The media seem very much like another world in our world, but one in which cosmic irony is not very much prevalent; one in which inhabitants have the power to decide what they do or get to encounter.
With the unbelievable growth of social media, our immediate physical world has now changed at a great pace. Several years back, even as close as two decades ago, society encountered no significant issues with prank(ers)ster who now intrude on people’s privacies and make many go nuts. It is to the extent that you can now hardly tell if a surprising event is actually true or planned.
There was this meme that went viral not long ago: We saw the leader of a gang of robbers that planned to rob a bank asked one of the robbers to stand aloof with a camera, so that when caught, they can claim it is a prank. This may be a joke but how far from the truth is it? Due to the nature of the works of art in the media now, we can anticipate such.
Further, there are misleading books, especially those self-published, that reach large audiences and change people’s minds. There are books that interpret dreams as though it is some kind of symbolism iconography in literature.
There are even seemingly philosophical concepts that are ideally pseudo-philosophical. I mean if one is not careful enough, these are literature, say— masquerading as other forms of art that can mislead us as a society.
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Similarly, how literature influences change in society may be determined by what a given community of people accept to be an ideal literary work.
I shouldn’t tell you this:
One of the fast-rising singers of this era has gained ground for himself in my place of residence. And the issue I have with this is that I see nothing more to his music than beat and noise. He will combine street slang with no fine meanings and shout at the top of his voice in his productions.
It upsets me, but you need to see how young people celebrate this and similar works of art in my area. Being the order of the day, youths would soon dress like this shameless crooner who can go to the length of taking off his pants when performing. Coupled with this fact he has several criminal records. These young people act in many other funny ways to live up to the standards of artists like this.
— AGE, Profage.
My point is: The literature (lyricism specifically) embraced by this community has influenced a lot. This means that changing our idea of the ideal literature type will reform society again. Things have not always been like this.
Literature can be good and bad. The points examined in this piece are not to describe literature as having affected society negatively over time, but to briefly tell the degree to which it can go from changing one person’s paradigm of thoughts to changing an entire society. Of course, it has improved the life lived, over the years.
If we agree that literature impacts our way of thinking, then we should not bother our minds with whether literature influences change in society.
In a nutshell, I will say that people are not more than the content of their minds, an asset which is determined by our inputs—the things we hear, see, or get told. This is literature and its nature.
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