Unit 1 Essay - Rough Draft

Charlotte Lakin

Writ 1122

Professor Leake

01/27/2013

How is Technology Affecting Us?

            Is technology affecting our literacy or is it just creating a new definition for literacy? Literacy is an ever-evolving concept that changes with new ways of reading and writing. Reading used to be only necessary in order to understand the Bible or other holy books but now we define a society by how much of its population can read or write. Literacy is definitely being changed by new technologies but whether it is a good or bad change I am not completely sure. I have never really enjoyed reading that much so I cannot describe how technology is affecting my reading abilities but maybe it’s because of new technologies that I do not enjoy reading.

            Nicholas Carr writes in his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” about how he struggles with reading longer pieces with new technologies, such as the Internet. Carr claims, “The Net seems to be…chipping away [his] capacity for concentration and contemplation”(Carr 2). He believes that the way information on the Internet, in short snippets, is determining how our brain wants to get all of our information. I agree that the speed at which I can get information has rapidly changed and has affected my ability to research anything. If it isn’t in the first page of Google I most likely will change the wording of my search rather than press the dreaded next button. Also, the length of something on the Internet also determines whether or not I will put the effort into reading all of it. Obviously for a class I will read something lengthy or if it is a topic or a book I am interested in I will read it but other than that I will just skim or completely ignore a long article.

            Even though I might skip the occasional long article I do not completely agree that the Internet is lowering our nations’ literacy rates. I do agree that it is changing what we read and how we read but I think that we are reading the same amount as we used to. Someone who reads the newspaper every morning might still read the newspaper but might read the online version instead of the paper version. I also do not think that it is affecting our writing abilities. My writing abilities have not decreased because of my increase in the use of Facebook. Andrea Lunsford, in her essay “Our Semi-Literate Youth? Not So Fast”, writes about the effect of new technologies on college students writing abilities. She talks about how we can easily change from levels of formalities whether we are writing a Facebook message to a friend, an email to a professor, or a research paper. Lunsford discusses the impact of new forms of writing (texting, Twittering, Facebooking) and states that “rather than leading to a new illiteracy, these activities seemed to help them develop a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range of abilities”(Lunsford 1).  Because of technology, as Lunsford argues, we are becoming writers with a greater variety for style. We can write a Tweet that is limited to 160 characters or we can write a 1500 word essay. Before the Internet and the new technologies associated with it, people would write letters, books, poems, or essays but not much else. Now, we can write in a whole variety of different styles.

            Technology is helping the amount we read because of how readily available everything is through the Internet. We can find almost every essay, piece of literature, or article online. We can also have access to this with the simple click of a button. With the ease of finding something to read online people can read much more frequently and easily. Also, if you just want to read a paragraph of a book you can do that much more easily now and a laptop is much more portable than a few books if you want to read one section from multiple books. Personally, I am much more likely to read something online than I am in a book, magazine, or newspaper.

Chris Hedges, in his essay “America the Illiterate”, argues that majority of our population have become so absorbed by the Internet and how it displays its information that they are “informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés”(Hedges 1). It is true that when on the Internet we are more attracted to something that has appealing colours and pictures but that does not mean that we are only interested in websites based on their pictures. Just because someone spends a lot of time on the Internet does not mean that “childish narratives and clichés” are the only thing that they are interested in. Someone could spend hours online reading newspapers, articles, or academic papers. Technology might be affecting people the way Hedges believes but it might only be affecting the less educated people in this way. However, people who were reading a lot before technology are still reading a lot.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. The Atlantic, June-July 2008.

Web. 27 Jan. 2013. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/>.

Hedges, Chris. "America the Illiterate." Editorial. Truth Dig. Zuade Kaufman, 10 Nov. 2008.

Web. 27 Jan. 2013. <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the _illiterate/>.

Lunsford, Andrea A. “Our Semi-Literate Youth? Not So Fast” Editorial. Stanford University, 10

Nov. 2010. Web. 27 Jan 2013. <http://www.stanford.edu/group/ssw/cgi-bin/materials/OPED_Our_Semi-Literate_Youth.pdf>.

My Reflections On Blogging

My previous blogging experience has mainly been with photos, videos, or very short quotes so this blog has been a whole new experience for me. Sharing my writing on a blog is still a very odd concept for me. The most challenging part of writing this blog was deciding how formal or informal I should be. I struggled with trying to put my own voice into my post but at the same time keeping the post somewhat formal. The most surprising part of this blog would definitely be how easy it was to write more than 250 words. When I first read that the posts only had to be 250 words I didn’t really think about how few words it actually is. The more I write these posts the easier it is for me to go over 250 words. I also find that it is easier for me to write more when I am responding to an article than when I am reflecting about my work or my blogging experience. My attitude towards blogging has changed slightly in the sense that I can now appreciate written blogs more. Before this class and this blog I didn’t really think about the purpose of a blog for writing but now I can see how it can be a chance for your ideas to be heard or just somewhere to put your thoughts. If I stumbled upon a written blog I never used to think twice about moving on to the next blog or webpage. Now, if the topic of the blog interests me I would actually stop and read some of the posts because I can appreciate the time, effort, and thought behind the posts.

Literacy

Lunsford describes literacy by explaining how college students’ writings have changed over the years. She states that we are writing more today than we have ever written in the past and in addition to writing more our writing is more varied. She talks about how we can easily change from levels of formalities whether we are writing a Facebook message to a friend, an email to a professor, or a research paper. Lunsford discusses the impact of new forms of writing (texting, Twittering, Facebooking) and states that “rather than leading to a new illiteracy, these activities seemed to help them develop a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range of abilities”. Unlike Carr and Hedges, Lunsford believes that these new forms of technology and the writing that goes with them are not actually making us more illiterate but are actually helping us develop a range of writing styles.

Scribner focuses her essay more on trying to define literacy and the importance of it in our society. I really liked how she says that literacy is not an individual skill but a societal skill. She states “individuals in societies without writing systems do not become literate”. Scribner tries to define literacy by looking at three different metaphors: literacy as adaptation, literacy as power, and literacy as a state of grace. With these three metaphors, Scribner discusses how it is not simple to define literacy because it is such a complex idea that cannot be defined the same for the entire population. She talks about functional literacy, which is the level of literacy that is needed for an average everyday life, but does not believe that it can be defined for the entire nation but at the same time thinks it isn’t necessarily the right thing to do if it is defined by neighbourhood either. When discussing the metaphor literacy as power, Scribner describes “the relationship between literacy and group or community advancement”. I believe there is a lot of truth in this statement but only when looking at advancement as a western perspective. Early civilizations advanced as a group without being able to read or write. Yes, we advanced a lot more once we could read and write but not all advancements are because of literacy.

One of the main differences between Carr and Hedges’ and Scribner and Lunsford’s views on literacy is that Carr and Hedges have a more pessimistic view that our literacy rates our declining based on technology whereas Scribner and Lunsford have a more optimistic view that our literacy rates are not necessarily being affect by technological advances.

Is Google Making Us Stupid & Illiterate?

          I believe that Carr believes that Google is not necessarily “making us stupid” but it is definitely lowering a certain aspect of our intelligence. Carr says that the way the Internet is set up it is subconsciously making us skim through things rather than read something fully and then move on. There are so many different ads or links on a website that it is hard to focus on one thing. If you are reading The New York Times online you might be reading an article and another headline in the margin pops up and diverts your attention. Carr makes a comparison regarding this: “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski”. With this comparison, I believe that Carr also wants to make the point that we used to read lengthy books but now we read short online articles. The Internet, Google especially, has focused are attention on a more picture-based intelligence. Hedge also refers to this picture-based intelligence by saying that “images and slogans are all [the less literate population] understand”.  Hedge portrays a somewhat depressing picture of our nation today by showing how the illiterate portion of our population cannot actually understand enough to do with bank loans, mortgages, taxes, or even voting for a president that could help their situation. Because they cannot understand forms and contracts their houses are being foreclosed and they are becoming bankrupt. I also liked how Hedge pointed out that the presidents do not need to be as intelligent as they used to be; they just have to seem intelligent.

            In Carr’s article he quotes one of the men who co-founded Google: “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off”. To me, this definitely does not seem like the right solution. Would we always have this knowledge or would we have to earn it? Do we have to learn the basic skills and then we attain this knowledge or do we have to graduate high school or college to get all of this information? Similar to Carr’s argument, I think that if this were the case today, if we all had a computer for a brain, we would become less intelligent. If we had all the knowledge of the world in our brains we wouldn’t have the need to be curious; we wouldn’t want to travel the world; we wouldn’t need to read anything. Also, I think that all that information would lower the need for human interactions and our world would start to look more like the world in the movie “Wall-E”.

My Definition of Reading & Writing

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There are many different levels of reading. It can be defined as anything from reading a text message to reading a book. Reading a text message or something similar is a very simple form of reading that does not require much thought or analyzing. Other forms of reading, such as reading a book, newspaper, or magazine article, can be much more challenging in the sense that they are thought provoking. My definition of reading is a skill that we use to read about other people’s ideas and consequently create our own ideas. Writing, like reading, varies depending on the audience and what message you want your readers to get. Writing can be as simple as writing an informal email to a friend or as complex as writing about your research on how a neuron works. My definition of writing is a way we can allow others to interpret our ideas or research.

Rewriting

Harris defines writing, specifically academic writing, as a response to someone else’s writing. He also defines it as a rewriting of someone else’s work. Harris asks “how do you make their words and thoughts part of what you want to say?”(1). I think this idea relates to how he believes we should read something to which we are intending to respond. If we read something whilst thinking about how you would say that in your own words you are already one step closer to writing a response to that text. Harris looks at the purpose of writing not only as rewriting someone else’s ideas but also adding your own ideas. He states, “you quote from a text to show what our perspective on it makes visible”(20).  By quoting Harris I want to show his original ideas in my work but also add his ideas to what I think and what I thought of his ideas.

            Harris talks about how we rewrite others work when we write our own text. Sullivan talks about how many other ideas and links are created from just one blog post. Sullivan talks about how “a blogger splashes gamely into a subject and dares the sources to come to him” which is similar to Harris’ idea about how we respond and rewrite. I also think Harris and Sullivan share similar thoughts on how writing should include your own thoughts. Sullivan talks about how a blog is your own and you can do with it whatever you please and Harris talks about how we should always include our own thoughts not just the rewritten thoughts of other writers.

Why I Blog...?

Andrew Sullivan delves into the topic of blogging in his article “Why I Blog”. If I had to create a one-word summary of the article it would be freedom. Sullivan talks a lot about how on a blog you can write what you want to write and not have to go through the lengthy editing process of professional writers for a newspaper/magazine or a book. With a blog you are free to write how you want, when you want, and what you want. Sullivan also talks about how ‘in the moment’ blogging is. The minute something happens in the world someone will immediately write about it on his/her blog. If you only read newspapers you are reading about what happened yesterday but on a blog you are reading about what is happening at that specific time. Sullivan describes this well: “There is a vividness to this immediacy that cannot be rivalled by print”. Another idea that Sullivan talks about that I believe is one of the reasons why he blogs is the amount of links and other ideas that are created from one blog post. People will comment on your post with their thoughts or they will write on their own blog and link to your post further opening the audience of your original post. The amount of information that will evolve from one blog post is infinite. Sullivan also links this to how a journalist looks at other sources before they write about it but “a blogger splashes gamely into a subject and dares the sources to come to him”.

And I really like this quote about the freedom of writing a blog from the article so I am adding it at the end: “To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others pivot you toward relative truth”.

Creating A Blog

I have created a blog before, not on blogger.com, so this was not a completely new experience for me. However, thinking of a title for this blog was definitely a challenge for me. I am not the most creative person in the world so "Charlotte's Blog" would have been fine in my mind. Instead, I decided to use a line from one of my favourite poems, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. My other blog is very different compared to this one and is mainly full of pictures, quotes, or videos that I like or find interesting. Creating a blog just for writing was not something that I thought I would ever do yet here I am.

There are many similarities between Facebook and blogging. Through both you can express your thoughts, post pictures, and look at other people’s pages/blogs. However, with a blog if you have a bigger opportunity to share your actual thoughts. People on Facebook share their thoughts with a short status update but on a blog you can rant on for paragraphs about what you think. Also, I noticed around election time that my friends on Facebook would get mad if people were trying to influence your thoughts about a presidential candidate. On a blog though you can talk about whatever you want. People don’t complain as much about what you write on your personal blog. I would say that the main difference between Facebook and blogs is that you have more freedom to talk about whatever floats your boat on a blog.

Whether you are writing a blog, a book, an article, or a research paper I would consider that person a writer.  The main difference between the different kinds of writing is the audience and how the writer should present their ideas. If I were writing a research paper I would want my writing to be very professional and well proofed but with a blog it doesn’t have to be the best writing I have ever done. A blog is a place to express your thoughts but you are still writing.