Although the enthusiasts for virtual reality may dream of eliminating writing, they cannot succeed, because even their virtual reality systems rest on layer after layer of writing, of arbitrary signs in the form of computer programs. What can happen, however, is the cultural devaluation of writing in comparison with perceptual presentation. It is possible that writing will be identified more and more as an elite activity, while the more popular mode of communication will be one that strives to eliminate the arbitrary sign. This is an elaborate way of saying that both conventional novels and hypertextual fictions like afternoon will be far less popular than interactive soap operas. Furthermore, I do think it's at least possible that we may be witnessing the end of prose.
Popular writing responds with a desire to emulate computer graphics.
Academic and other specialized forms respond by a retreat into jargon or into anachronism. In all cases, however, the silence of electronic media seems to be descending upon prose. Since ancient times, the rhetorical voice has been a primary instrument for defining point of view. Now the ability to define a mobile, visual point of view in electronic media seems to be silencing our culture's rhetorical voice. Perhaps this silencing indicates a new beginning, a kind of written communication in which the primary mode of imitation is visual rather than oral.