Ladies and Gentlemen, The New York Times...

Informative.  That’s the first thing that comes to mind—mostly because I really didn’t read the newspaper very often prior to taking this specific writing course.  The New York Times has been known to be a credible source of news, and they do a very nice job of covering main headlines and quite a few smaller stories as well.  However I do not read the NY Times the traditional way.  I read it on NYTimes.com or on the app on my phone.  Although they report the same headlines, the way they are displayed couldn’t be more different.  A newspaper has only what is printed and usually on the front cover there is a huge photo to catch readers eyes.  On their website there are short blurbs on the main headlines and then click-able links that lead to the entire article as well as other links that are similar to the article’s topic.  Links to other websites have major appeal because they allow readers to continue reading more news. 

            Major stories that have stood out to me are anything on the Primaries, the sinking of the Titanic part II (just kidding), most recently the Superbowl, as well as the huge debate over SOPA and PIPA.  I think the NY Times has done a pretty accurate job in covering major stories although I’m sure I have missed many local stories and other smaller but still news worthy stories.   By even just skimming the NY Times I am able to educate myself that much more and thus improve my writing because of what I am reading as well the way it is written.   

News From All Angles

Despite all the sources that news is available on, after looking at my classmate’s blogs the one source that was predominantly used was the Internet.  Like myself, my class found that news came at a much quicker pace when it was from the Internet.  It was increasingly apparent that sources like the radio and newspaper are becoming an obsolete source of news.  On occasion people read the newspaper, but our generation is no longer picking up a copy of the local paper and reading it at breakfast like our parents do.   Currently we are getting our information from notifications on our phones or from what we over read on Facebook.  It seems to me that we are solely relying on the Internet for news.  (Which is troublesome if we were to ever lose Internet access/service.)  I think Sullivan would agree that we rely on the Internet for quick news.  His blogs show that they report news (although most likely bias news) however it is news nonetheless.  Blogs report on the ongoing of every topic under the sun.  There are blogs devoted to Presidential Elections, which can provide up to date and accurate information on candidates.  That’s one of the things I like about blogs and getting my information from the Internet—you can read as little or as much as you want on the Internet.  On other sources of news like radio and television you aren’t really able to skip around to different news stories.  All in all I think it’s more important that people are reading or listening to the news, rather than where they get their news.

No More 'Fire Side Chats'

With all the available resources available it is increasingly easy to find news stories.  However it is not as easy (due to laziness) to look at news stories.  Now one of the main reasons I read about the news is because Yahoo is my homepage when I open an internet browser.  Now before there is any bashing on Yahoo, I like how their website is setup because there are about 16 news stories ranging from fashion to weather and I can quickly scroll over one and find out the main jist of a story.  If something really catches my eye I’ll click the link and read the article (or most of it).   The second way I get my news is notifications that get ‘pushed’ from my New York Times and CNN apps on my iphone.  Push notifications are also extremely useful, because they notify me about a main news story in one sentence, and from there I can choose to go to the main article or not.  Even if I’m not reading the entire article I still am able to find out about what is going on in the election or what big companies are doing.  Now although occasionally I do pick up a news paper or catch a glimpse of a news story on the TV, I usually don’t use either of these source to get my news.  As for radio since I’m big into music and don’t have a car in Denver I almost never listen to news stories via radio.  It’s strange how close to 70 years ago the radio was patented and became one of the biggest inventions used world wide.  I mean people were obsessed with the radio—they got to listen to FDR’s ‘fire side chats.’  The radio used to be such a source of news and now the only real radio station that I can think of to have any real impact anymore is NPR.  The world is changing—we no longer rely on radio or newspapers for news, it’s all about quick short stories on the Internet.

How I See It

The world is changing and the way we read and write about that world is part of the transformation.  Technology has created an entire generation of readers and writers who generate anywhere from short updates about his or her day to lengthy essays about current events.  Students are furthering their education—maybe not in the traditional style but according to Sylvia Scribner, Clive Thompson, and Andrew Sullivan technology has not only changed what we are reading as a generation but they also note it is adding to the amount that society is writing.   By embracing the information that is readily available, today’s generation is furthering their reading and writing skills like never before.

The free flow of information that is available on the Internet has revolutionized the way society interprets and responds to information.  From this revolution of technology and thus the flow of information, it would be assumed that the procedure for measuring literacy should be updated to fit society.  However many critics argue that the way for measuring literacy should be the same as it was back in the 1900’s.  Literacy is defined as the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read or write with synonyms for the word listed as learning and culture (CMS).  I bring up the dictionary definition of ‘literacy’ in order to draw attention to the ‘quality’ and ‘state’ of being literate as well as a synonym for it as defined as ‘culture’.  Literacy is defined by the culture it is surrounded by—our current society is not the same as the one in 1920.  The way we share information can’t even be compared to any other generation and thus it can’t fairly be measured.  “ Definitions of literacy shape our perceptions of individuals who fall on either side of the standard (what a ‘literate’ or ‘nonliterate’ is like) and thus in a deep way affect both the substance and the style of educational programs” (Scribner 6).  We are defined by how society perceives us—however accurate or inaccurate that may be.  If today’s generation is the be measured up to the old standard of literacy then the millions of Facebook posts, Twitter updates, and blog readings most likely would not be considered to be a beneficial to a person’s literacy.  However when considering today’s generation you should also consider the type of media and texts they are constantly surrounded by.  Society may no longer be reading “War and Peace” but society is reading millions of small things every second on the Internet.  The standard for measuring literacy should be altered to today’s generation and how they read and write with the current means of technology.  By taking into account the current means that information is available by, it can be seen that today’s generation is increasing their reading and writing output tremendously.

Society has changed—the technology created in the last 10 years alone, has revolutionized how men and women read and write.  Facebook updates, Twitter posts, and blogs have virtually replaced handwritten letters and newspapers, and the circulation of information is only a click away.  The current generation constantly circulates information and incessantly is responding to what is going on.  “The first thing she (Andrea Lunsford) found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text” (Thompson 1).  It is almost impossible that anyone in today’s generation isn’t swept away by some type of social media, thus it is very rare that individuals in society can avoid reading or writing something on some type of website.  It is well know that Facebook alone has 800 million users who on average spend 700 million minutes per month on Facebook (Facebook Statistics).  And that’s only Facebook.  With outstanding numbers like that for one site, it can be assumed that other sites like Twitter, Blog Spot, Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube hold millions of readers and writers as well.  Today’s generation is not taking the Internet for granted, they have transformed into a society that uses the Internet to read and write, in a way that has never been seen before.  From the Internet comes instant publication that wasn’t possible a decade ago.  Those short Twitter blurbs and Facebook wall posts are instantly globalized and are available to anyone with access to the Internet.  Because of this instant publishing Internet users are swayed more and more to continuously update the world on all their doings.  “This form of instant and global self-publishing, made possible by technology widely available only for the past decade or so, allows for no retroactive editing (apart from fixing minor typos or small glitches) and removes from the act of writing any considered or lengthy review. It is the spontaneous expression of instant thought” (Sullivan 1).  This spontaneous expression has led to the increase in writing as discussed by Sullivan.  Society is allowed the opportunity to express their immediate feelings to a situation and have it be available to other readers within seconds.  In the past, information was ‘slow’ and edited—there was no candidness to newspaper articles or news reports.  Internet posts, like blogging are instant and without any real hesitation.  “No columnist or reporter or novelist will have his minute shifts or constant small contradictions exposed as mercilessly as a blogger’s are. A columnist can ignore or duck a subject less noticeably than a blogger committing thoughts to pixels several times a day. A reporter can wait—must wait—until every source has confirmed. A novelist can spend months or years before committing words to the world. For bloggers, the deadline is always now” (Sullivan 2).  The same can be said for Facebook posts, blogs, and Twitter updates—there is no delay period for any of these types of media outputs.  That is what draws the user in—instant gratification.  From the combination of readily available information, social media websites, and instant gratification today’s generation is drawn in and has continued to read and write incomparable to any prior generation.  

Reading and writing as it once was known has changed forever.  Today’s generation is built on a platform of social media websites, endless information, and a desire to post every detail of our lives.  Literacy has changed—from the definition to the way it is measured to how society currently uses it.  However you look at it, it is impossible to ignore the fact that society is reading and writing at a rate that has never been seen before.

A Ending Thought, for now...

Blogging has been more interesting than I originally gave it credit for.  There is a lot of honest and well thought out posts from multiple students.  I was skeptical at first at what I’d learn from blogging to pieces by some writer I truly don’t care about—but then came the topics.  Google is Making Us Stupid, America the Illiterate, Literacy in Metaphors, and New Literacy.  I by far liked being able to candidly say whatever the hell I wanted about all of these readings, and honestly I didn’t really care if anyone else agreed with my arguments or not, but it was nice to be able to place them somewhere.  All of the sources got some kind of rise, or excitement out of me that I wasn’t aware I’d feel when starting this project.  It’s amazing not only what you learn about yourself but also what you learn from other’s opinions.

I’ve learned to look at blogging as becoming a credible source of writing, although I’m not 100% convinced I do think it holds substantial merit.  Same with how I few literacy and illiteracy in general, I realized neither are cut and dry.  They are both complicated and need to be looked at from multiple angles.  My web habits haven’t changed substantially, other than creating this blog and trying to balance how long I’m on Facebook with how long I read the news for.  I think the biggest change actually came about early on when thinking about the type of writing I did—and thus the realization that very few things were handwritten, thus I started a journal along side with writing these blog posts.  Of course my journal is more superficial, but it’s nice to also write about the events that happen in the news.  All in all its been a nice change and a cool way of writing about important topics in a free form way

Literacy in a New Art Form

It’s fascinating to me how Carr and Hodges are so willing to say how illiterate our country is but they never once give a definition of illiteracy.  How can you prove some ’40 million’ people (as stated in Hodge’s essay) are illiterate? With one huge test?  In Scribner’s article he brings up the fact that literacy have been attempted to be defined over and over again and is still inconclusive.  Thus he makes the argument that maybe, “Most efforts at definitional determination are based on a conception of literacy as an attribute of individuals; they aim to describe constituents of literacy in terms of individual ability.” This brings up the real possibility that literacy may be a social achievement rather than an individual one.  This social idea of literacy can be seen in Thompson’s writing as well.  Instead of condoning the countless hours of Facebook posts and tweets, Thompson quotes Professor Andrea Lunsford with saying, “The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text.”  Now this is a very unique idea—our little blurbs about our lives and the comments we leave on a friend’s picture may actually be of some type of merit.  We write without even thinking about it because it is a social norm to have a Facebook, twitter, or some type of social networking site in your possession.  Which brings me to what Scribner refers to as Literacy as an adaptation.  It’s obvious in daily life how much we need to be able to read road signs, warnings, not to mention reading that our job requires.  To be a functioning part of society at least in someway, there is no choice but to attempt to be literate.  Maybe not so proficiently to read a novel, but it is important to adapt to your surroundings whatever they may be.  Thompson also had a rather similar argument, he claimed that to fit into the social writing that was happening online there is a “kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across.” I found this very accurate, especially from an avid user of Facebook.  Since it’s a social writing world we live in now, in order to fit in the writer must be able to adapt to what its readers find appealing and thus adopting ‘kairos.’  I think both Scribner and Thompson do a very complete job in seeing our current way of writing as a new positive.  Now the current illiteracy (although it cant truly be measured) is overwhelmingly high I think it comes down to teaching the basics of reading and writing to every illiterate.  Facebook statuses and Tweets aren’t going to help someone who is truly illiterate, so I think the biggest problem the country has to face in the regards of literacy is going back to the basics most of us learned in our elementary school days.

Pictures vs. Words for the Uneducated

Although I have much more respect for Hedges argument than I did for Carrs’ I still feel like there is something missing from their arguments.  Maybe it’s because I am an educated student who doesn’t like the feeling of being talked to like a 10 year old but I don’t think Hedges gives any credit to the educated.  He makes the argument that “Hamlet” can be as entertaining as “The Lion King.”  However true that may be, it isn’t a fair playing field—he’s comparing to completely different types of media from different centuries.  I’m not sure about the rest of society but as an adult I’m not really looking toward Disney to give me my educational information.  Disney is an entertainment business…BUSINESS.  They create things to catch consumer’s attention.

Now I completely get why Hedges is making the argument that America relies heavily on what people tell them rather than what they think.  It was obvious in the Obama election that there were quite a few people who had no idea is Obama was a Republican or a Democrat but because he is black they voted for him regardless.  That is the sad part about our society that some are so easily swayed by a few flowery words and pretty pictures, but that’s only some of us.  Hedges says that the illiterate don’t vote because they aren’t educated enough to know what is going on.   But in all honesty although I understand a majority of what politics are talking about I would never be able to sit through hearing or reading all about every complicated word about policy.  I think it would be extremely difficult.  It’s not because I’m illiterate that I wouldn’t be able to read it, it because its not interesting to me to know every detail, as long as I understand the main point I think that is enough.  Isn’t that what the politicians are trying to do, make it easier for those who don’t have the means to be educated.  So although a lot of the population isn’t educated, the real problem isn’t blaming them for being tricked by pictures—the real problem is the society around them, that doesn’t help them to get an actual education.