reading response 1

In Clive Thompson’s article “New Literacy,” Thompson attempts to challenge a widespread sentiment that digital technology has had a noxious influence on language. Not only has it degraded the language into some unpalatable state, it has dampened our ability to write anything that might pass for being superior to subliterate. Thompson, insists that this criticism overlooks some critical facts. Primarily, in no other generation have so many people taken to writing as we have, and that in no other generation, have the writers been better at addressing their audience, due to the habitual use of public forums. He also cites a study by a Stanford professor of writing and rhetoric, which found no traces of these so-called poor writing habits in academic papers, or that the technical level of writing had suffered in any way. With all this considered, Thompson concludes, that this transformation should not be balked. It shouldn’t be thought of as a great disaster or failure in our responsibility towards language; but as a new revolution in literacy that should be embraced for what he sees to be a positive influence. A revolution which provides new types of mediums for self-expression and for countless new writers, which fittingly syncs up alongside the information revolution, that continues to fuel it.

My own view on Thompson’s analysis is that he fails to convincingly persuade us against the main argument that technology has negatively influenced our literacy levels, and instead overloads his article with his own technophile enthusiasm and hyperbole about the novel literary happenings going on in the internet. Though I concede that more people write today than before, I still am not convinced that this has any bearing on the issue at hand. The quantity of writing and the ratio of ability are not a direct relationship, as a rule. The only metric he mentions in his article is something called kairos, our ability to connect with a readership. He segues from his idea that we’ve enhanced our level of kairos through the internet, to the definition of “good writing”, “something that had an effect on the world.“ When we connect the dots of what he is implying, I find it ironic in the context of his article. Before the internet, there was a significant barrier between the writer and the world, there were editors and publishers that constantly attempted to stifle anything not fit for reading. Nowadays though, with the internet, this barrier that has always existed and assured a certain standard of writing quality amongst writing that is read by the world, has been dissolved, and now it is more possible that any level of writing skill can become read by a large audience and produce an effect on the world. Thompson is also perhaps carelessly keen of hyperbole. For example, I think his comparison between the internet and the literary revolution in ancient Greece was a bit misplaced. He would have done better to have compared it to the printing press, or maybe, the Renaissance. Greece transitioned from a restrictive oral tradition laden with mythical worldviews to the written word, essentially facilitating the discovery and spread of free thinking and society as we know it in Western society. The groundwork for modern science, philosophy, math and medicine were all laid out in Greece then, and the last 2,000 years of philosophy have more or less been an ongoing footnote in the original debates there. Though the internet and Greek dialogue might share some dialectic similarities, I would be hesitant to think, as of yet, that the internet has in some shape or form facilitated a literary contribution to society as significant as Homer or Aristotle. For another example of his unchecked use of hyperbole, he refers to twittering as possessing “haiku-like concision.” Another thing I take issue with is his reference of a Stanford study that he attempts to use to corroborate his opinion that writing skill hasn‘t declined. Stanford as a sample for his generalization doesn’t to me seem like a representative cross-section of the writing abilities of the general population of the internet. In sum, Thompson is deluding himself by glossing over the fact that the vast majority of users of the internet usually do not generate content with anything but minimal consideration for literary quality, and infrequently take into consideration their readership in a way that meaningfully improves their writing. This being so, I think the internet should be thought of as a useful tool for people who like to write and want to use it in that way, but I think judgments on this subject should be more careful on both sides. The level and quality of literacy on the internet is not necessarily the same thing as the level and quality of literacy as those who use it, as the people Thompson is arguing against seem to suggest. Most people that use the internet recognize it as a kind of anonymous and meaningless void where one can write however and whatever one feels, some people preferring to adhere to standards others preferring to be willfully indifferent, and others still simply being illiterate. Thompson should likewise reconsider that maybe there is a connection between rampant and sustained abuse of virtually every facet of language on the internet, and a declining trend in the literacy of those who are perpetrating the offense. However, generating a meaningful conversation on the subject with relevant evidence for either direction is going to be much more difficult than it probably seems at first glance. Although some might object that the internet provides the means to develop our ability unlike any other medium, I reply that this is true for some people, but isn‘t the rule. The issue is important because language is something that shapes our world and so shouldn’t be taken too lightly.