Reading Response #1

In Clive Thompson's Recent work, he suggests that "we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization." He believes that instead of technology "killing our ability to write...It's reviving it- and pushing our literacy in bold new directions." To back up his beliefs, Thompson included a study done by Andrea Lunsford(professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University) about technology and it's effects on our youth. It concluded that "young people today write far more than any generation before them" and that's because of all the socialization that's done online.

Thompson implies through much of his writing that technology is encouraging people to not only write more, but be more creative and express themselves through writing more often than not. There are so many instances in which our youth today have to use writing as communication, such as facebook, myspace, email, texting, and the Internet. The upcoming generations are being forced unknowingly to apply their ability to read and write every day, as where the last generation did not do nearly as much. Although many scholars have debated whether technology may be actually crippling upcoming generations from being able to write correctly, Thomson disagrees. He quotes, "When Lunsford examined the work of first year students, she didn't find a single example of texting speak in an academic paper." Although it is never said in Thompson's work, he is a consistent advocate for the use of technology as it betters "real world writing."

From all that Thompson has said, I have to reaffirm with Thomson's view. Although there are some instances in which someone might use "texting speak" instead of what's appropriate, but for the majority, people do use the appropriate language, especially during school. There is a difference between the two and it is fairly easy to acknowledge the difference. If used enough, technology can actually help rather than hinder writing.

If you think about it, writing and technology pretty much go hand in hand. Like the example that Thompson uses, "The brevity of texting and status updating teaches young people to deploy haiku like concision. At the same time, the proliferation of new forms of online pop cultural exegesis- from sprawling TV show recaps to 15,000 word video game walk through has given them a chance to write enormously long and complex pieces of prose, often while working collaboratively with others."

I absolutely can not deny how much technology has boosted my generation in writing and literature. Before technology was invented, people had to write by hand, buy actual books and speak mainly by word of mouth. Now, people are both reading and writing constantly in order to keep up with the media, friends and family. I can not express enough how thankful I am to be living in this day and age because of the advancements in technology that we have. It truly makes our generation unique and it is our guide to more advancements in the future. Through it, we are honestly thinking more often, i mean, we have to in order to keep up, but that is a plus. It is "pushing literacy into cool directions."