The Internet of Minds (IoM) and the Evolution of the Frankenstein Literature: Features of Cyber Alienation in 10:01 by Lance Olsen and Tim Guthrie, Chat by Mohamed Sanajelah, and Flightpaths: A Networked Novel by Kate Pullinger, Chris Joseph, and participants.

It was not so long ago that a writer prophesized the future. A scientist will create a piece of art that will no longer be a dead object. It will speak, listen, interact, and have a mind of its own. It will be a deformed creature that will go beyond the aspirations of its creator crossing all redlines.  While Roland Barthes announced long ago ‘the death of the author’, the digital age manifests a deeper validation of his theory. The merger between technology—a cold pragmatic tool—and literature- a vivid lively art— is producing both, beautifully poignant and fearfully deformed offspring. This offspring, this paper proposes, can be called ‘Frankenstein Literature’ referring to the uncontrollable results of merging human faculties with technological and scientific innovation without taking into consideration the cultural and social dimensions of the human condition. The term ‘Frankenstein Literature’ clearly borrows its naming from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. However, the choice of the name does not only refer to the horrendous ending of the novel in which the creation annihilated the creator. It more importantly refers to a deeper and a more profound value: the repercussions of alienation and social isolation within the context of a new world of technologized humans or humanized technology on the created and the creator.  While ‘Internet’ is a term that refers to the global computer network, and the ‘Internet of Things (IoT)’ refers to the interconnection of the computing devices embedded in everyday objects, the ‘Internet of Minds (IoM)’ is a term this paper proposes to refer to the interconnectivity between minds through the internet.
Astonishingly enough, and in spite of what would have been expected from a technology that was primarily invented to connect people, the outcome is exactly the opposite. While manipulating the transmitted messages, it moreover intensified the alienation of online and offline of both senders and recipients. These features of alienation and social isolation are the main and most recurrent theme and mode of writing within the digital world. This feature, ‘alienation’, that has been studied by philosophers, theorists, literary scholars, and thinkers through many years of literary criticism, is currently of a diverse nature and dimension within the cyber world. It moreover promises to associate wider and deeper implications with the wider and deeper human plunging in technology. This paper forecasts the production of a ‘Frankenstein’ or a fearful technologically mutant literary content whose influence is far beyond the virtual world giving a term to a yet termless production that includes all online and offline content transmitted, created, and posted using digital technology whether individually or combined with other forms of art whether audio or visual showing literary merit. It moreover presents a study of a common feature in much of that content which is a distinct type of ‘alienation’ related to the cyber experience which might be called Cyber Alienation. Thus, this paper will be divided into three parts. First, there will be a quick overview of the final stages of the development of literature into the digital age. Then, there will be a presentation of the premises of the two terms that this paper proposes for the evolving phenomenon resulting from the encounter between Literature and New Media, namely, the Internet of Minds (IoT) and the Frankenstein Literature. Third there will be an analysis of three representative digital works: 10:01 by Lance Olsen and Tim Guthrie, Chat by Mohamed Sanajelah, and Flightpaths: A Networked Novel by Kate Pullinger, Chris Joseph and participants to tackle features of what this paper specifies as Cyber Alienation.