Technology's Influence on Writing

     In Clive Thomson’s article “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” he tells his readers about how technology has improved students’ writing abilities.  Thompson starts off quoting John Sutherland, an English professor at the University of London, who believes that today’s technology is causing students to blabber on the internet and explains how our writing has become ‘bleak, bald, and sad shorthand’.  But the negative perspective of technology and writing ends there.

     Thompson then goes on into great depth and detail of Professor Andrea Lunsford’s positive view about this topic.  He tells of how Lunsford started the Sanford Study of Writing project that lasted five years.  And over the course of those years she collected 14,672 samples of students writing that ranged from class assignments and formal essays to journal entries and chat sessions.  After spending multiple hours pouring over every piece of work, she came the conclusion of what is, in her words, a “literacy revolution”.  She believes that involving writing in technology has increased the students’ ability of kairos- adjusting the writing to fit the audience to get their point across best.  When the students are in class they know that they are only writing for the professor, therefore, they don’t enjoy it as much.  For them writing is more about “persuading and organizing and debating”, even if it is about the small things. 

     Based on the amount of time and detail Thompson put into describing Lunsford’s point of view it is best to assume that he is in agreement with the Stanford professor.

     I too must agree with Lunsford and Thompson.  Today’s technology is helping our generation increase our writing styles and giving us amazing opportunities to speak to an audiences of many kinds. Though I am not afraid to admit that John Sutherland had a point when he said that “facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering” and our texting has been “bleak, bald, and sad shorthand’’, I still believe that technology is giving us many opportunities to use kairos.  There is a difference between having a professor read a paper that you weren’t very enthusiastic to write about and being apart of a huge debate on facebook with a bunch over why you think Harry Potter is better than Twilight, or why a Mustang is better than a Jaguar.  One is required of you and there is no one to argue against you or tell you their own opinion on the matter, all you get is red markings and a letter grade at the top, based now how well one person thought of your argument.  The other is not just an involvement with other people, but a use of writing techniques that you try to use in order to get more people to agree or disagree with you.  Some writers may agree with Professor Sutherland and other may agree with Professor Lunsford, but it is important to realize that you are never not writing to an audience-the professor is still an audience whether you like it or not and technology has greatly helped students in their writing, if not got them writing more.