Reading Response 1:

In this day in age people all over the world use technology, if it’s social networking, texting, videos and more. It’s hard to imagine how life would be without technology available to you with a click of a button. With so much information at our finger tips John Sutherland states that “kids can’t write today- and technology is to blame.” Clive Thompson wrote The New Literacy to educate people that even with so much technology out there, there can also be extremely positive benefits for writing today. Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University did a study; Lunsford gathered writing samples of students and explored how writing skills have changed through out the years. Lunsford claims that “Technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it- and pushing literacy in bold new directions.”

Thompson apparently assumes that with so many technological advances happening, it is also advancing the ways of young writers.

My own view is that technology gives writers so many positive opportunities to be able to express there opinion on various topics. Thompson wrote that “Before the internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment.” That is most likely the sad truth, I feel that internet has given people another chance to let their creative side lose and express themselves. Also back when blogging and social networking wasn’t available people would usually have to get their books published to actually get their word out there, but now all you need to do is post a blog, write whatever your heart desires and people will actually be able to read it. Lunsford found that 38 percent of writing took place out of the classroom, so for me it’s hard to imagine how writing wouldn’t be advancing with technology.

Though I concede that technology also has its unconstructive sides to writing, I feel that technology can also distract people from things that are more important. For example, from my own experience if I am writing a long tedious paper on my computer I can get easily distracted by face book and texting. I still maintain that technology gives people endless ways to express their writing, even if it may also have its downfalls. I feel that this is a very important issue to think about because everyone uses technology constantly even if you don’t realize it, but few really stop to think about how it affects us all in our daily life’s and in how it has evolved writing. Some people fear the unknown; people may worry where technology will take us in the future, but I still strongly believe that technology will push the boundaries of writing.