Clive Thompson on the New Literacy

by Makayla Paige

In the beginning of Clive Thompson's article, he blames today's technology as the reason why kids can't write. He insists that Facebook encourages people to speak in an informal way and shortening sentences. Andrea Lunsford isn’t so sure about his theory. Lunsford collected 14,672 student writing samples, everything from essays to emails to blog posts. “I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization” the writing professor shares. Technology isn’t ruining the way we speak and write, its simply changing the way we write and speak.
Before the internet came along, parents and teachers and students would write using a pencil and a piece of paper for school essays and writing assignments. They didn’t have the perks of using a quick dictionary or using the internet to find more examples for a research paper. They hand wrote everything and when they weren’t in school, writing was a popular thing to do; AIM wasn’t around and sending a letter to your grandma was the only option. Lunsford read and studied the pieces of writing she got back; she didn’t find any examples of text lingo at all. Today children and teenagers are writing more than ever. We write on our Facebook pages and even blog. Some people even journal every day. Today writing is a huge part of our lives; it’s our way of communicating when you aren’t next to that person. Sending an instant text is helpful when you can’t call them up. As we move forward in our lives, we will continue to write and communicate, this can really help us. If we are writing to a formal audience we edit and revise, making the piece perfect. If it’s to our best friend, I can see how people don’t put much effort into it. The audience makes a difference on the way our writing is put together and worded.
Clive Thompson seems to be just thinking of the public. He doesn’t have any facts to support his claim, if he did; he would have more support on his claim. Reading this article, I have to agree with Lunsford thoughts. Today you can’t tell who the mad texter is and who puts thought into their writing pieces. It really depends on the audience. If I was to write to my boyfriend, I would use abbreviations and not put into sentence format. If it was to my Manager at work, I’d make sure my paper was perfect with no flaws or errors. Audience makes a difference but then again some people always have a structured format when they write no matter who it is to.