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.

A Lack of Interest Rather than Focus

Unfortunately for mister Carr, he isn’t the first person to come up with the argument that the Internet and Google are making our generation dumber.   It’s called evolution.  If we didn’t have evolution we’d all still be shitting in dirt and trying to make fire—then think how hard it would be to get caught in the narrative or strolling through prose.  I’m sorry but we’re a generation of multi taskers—we do eight things at once and sometimes we don’t put 100% into everything we do but things still get done.  Carr is living in the Renaissance days, which have long since come and gone.  He blames the Internet’s accessible information for his complete lack of focus—maybe instead of handing off blame he should take responsibility for not taking the effort to stay on track.  I am by no means saying that he is the only one that has a lack of concentration when it comes to technology—there is so much out there in the unknown that is readily available, its hard not get distracted and want to explore the endless caverns of information. 

I however condone the fact that they cannot disconnect themselves in order to read something like “War and Peace.”  Of course it’s lengthy and thick and complicated but if you put in effort isn’t it worth it?  If I had more time in life to sit and read minus distraction I’d be more than willing.  Over break for three days all I did was read—finished the “Hunger Games” trilogy.  Maybe those books aren’t the same as “War and Peace” but they still take concentration, which obviously I was able to prove I still posses.   I just don’t understand why Carr is so upset, you can ask most college students and I bet a good percentage have read a lengthy intellectual book, wither by choice or for a class.  I don’t think our problem is concentration—I think the problem is people are still trying to get liberal arts majors to do math.   I’d say there is a high probability that a Bio major wouldn’t really want to read “Don Quixote” or “War and Peace” because it isn’t of interest to them.  I think concentration is not a problem when whatever you’re reading has some interest to you.  I can tell you 9 times out of 10 I’d probably skim anything to do with science, but I know id read ever word in a history book.  It all comes down to interest.

Don Quixote, Harris, and a dash of Sullivan

In Harris’ view books, movies, plays, songs, paintings, sculptures, photographs, cartoons, videos, billboards, advertisements, web pages, as well as objects hold some type of meaning to their users.  However he also says not everything is a ‘text.’  “Texts refer to object that can be shelved, filed, or stored, and then retrieved and reexamined” (Harris 11).    So I can see how what Harris says is very relatable to Sullivan they both agree that their main mode of writing, is something that can be looked back on and examined.  Harris also goes so far as bringing up Jorge Luis Borges who decided to rewrite a chapter in the classic “Don Quixote.”  I’d say blogging is very similar to modernizing a classic novel.  I think Sullivan had to be original with his bloggings—more honest just like Borges probably had to be while rewriting.  “Of course, the idea of coming to terms also emphasizes that we are dealing here with words, with connecting your language to that of the texts you are reading.  Such work involves a dialectic between paraphrase and quotation” (Harris 15).  I think this part of Harris’ argument for writing is what got me to connect it to blogging.  It seems to me that blogging is a rather freeform type of expression.  At the same time though it must also be truthful to whatever the blog is about.  While reading Sullivan when he talks about writing about 9/11 there was complete connection between what was going on and the language that he used to describe it.  I can’t say I 100% agree that blogging is a real source of valuable writing but I do believe it has something very honest and important to express.

The Internet Addicts of the World

The world has transformed.  It is no longer a place where paper and pencil is for recording everything.  This is the age of the computer, Internet, i-pods, video games, and technology in general.  There is no denying my generation of students relies heavily on technology.  I feel like the only ones free of technology are the simple "uncivilized" of the jungle or those that live an Amish lifestyle.  In our society and more specifically at our school technology surrounds us, and we constantly are using it.  


After looking over my class mate's blogs I discovered the obvious--everyone at one point or another during the day visits at least 2 or more unacademic sites.  Like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,Stumble Upon, Netflix, and plenty of other time wasting sites.  Of course a few hours are wasted on sites like blackboard, Web central, The New York Times, or on blog sites for class.  I think a lot of my habits are the same as my classmates, checking Facebook quickly to see if any new notifications have popped up, or looking at something interesting that Yahoo has posted on their home page.  Yet I'm not sure how to compare how much I read and write regular material that isn't on the Internet.  It would be interesting to see how many people actually try to read their own book outside of class or who writes in a journal daily.  So much time is focused around the distraction of the Internet, we all forget to go back to basic reading and writing that we learned as children