In discussions of “Clive Thompson’s, The New Literacy”, the controversial issue brought up here is regarding the inevitable fretting from pundits and critics about how kids today can’t write, and whether technology is to blame. Clive Thompson quotes John Sutherland (an English professor in University College of London) who concurs, “Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, also texting has dehydrated language into: bleak, bald, sad shorthand”. Clive Thompson counters John Sutherland’s theory by using another professor’s viewpoint- Andrea Lunsford who is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students’ prose. From 2001 – 2006, Andrea Lunsford has collected 14, 672 writing samples from students- everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. She claims we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution, technology isn’t killing our ability to write, but technology is reviving it.
Clive Thompson implies favor towards Andrea Lunsford’s outlook, that our literacy has truly evolved and progressed to an advanced direction—thanks, to our modern technology influencing young people today to write and express themselves not only in class, but also in the world of cyberspace. Clive Thompson apparently assumes that students these days are actively writing, driven by the strong pull of cyberspace culture. He says students are more enthusiastic about writing for larger audience like the online media rather than in-class essays just for professor’s viewing. Clive Thompson however utters, good teaching is always going to be crucial, as is the mastering of formal academic prose. Online media may be pushing literacy into cool directions but students still need to learn techniques of formal writing.
My own view is that most kids today are exactly where they want to be. Technology like the online media offers a lot of learning tools and it is up to the kids how they want to take advantage of these offerings and tools. Although the online media also presents entertainment of all sorts, again it is up to the kids how they want to respond to these offerings. They can read news online, chat online, ‘google’ subjects or issues, utilize the Wikipedia (free encyclopedia online), create blogs (exercising freedom of speech), play games online, use instant messaging, and email their local or overseas contacts. I do understand and concede that technology may also have its negative influence. The power of entertainment especially can attract kids today and cause them to allocate more time on technology’s pleasurable activities as opposed to school work or beneficial online media activities. Cell phones, for example offer text messaging and instant messaging, which is fun and good in some ways because one get to constantly keep in touch with people and be in the loop of current social events. The downside, needing to compose a speedy reply to send to their contact, messages become unavoidably short and sometimes meaningless. For example, in text messages such as “I <3 u” or “I luv u,” is it really the same as “I love you.”? As a result, sometimes short and fancy text / instant message alters their writing and makes their composition appear without depth. In some cases, text messaging may further prompt them to second guess their spelling and vocabulary since the excuse of shorthand writing has become an understandable trend. Thus, some settle to spell the word as how it sounds while others solely rely on the cell phone’s auto spell application. Some might concur that informal writing is okay and acceptable especially when it comes to text messaging / instant messaging. They might say as long as they don’t forget formal writing, then its okay. In contrast, I believe making it acceptable and tolerating this trend will not help support the propriety of speech and spelling. Technology can be to one’s own of advantage and disadvantage. We cannot attribute the blame to technology. The important issue is how to make use of the technology given at hand. In other words, would you rather send a text message of “I luv u” or “I love you”? Kids today are where they exactly want to be.
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