Reading Response #1

In today’s society young people are stereotyped and are believed to be illiterate because of their usage of technology. In the article “On the Literacy” Thompson explains his view on this topic. He provides interesting facts on the present generation that support his opinion and that lead to his ultimate conclusion. Thompson apparently assumes that this generation is changing drastically in its writing but in a superior way. While society complains that technology has a negative effect on young people and their writing, Thompson implies that technology is having a positive effect on writing today. Thompson explains studies that took place at Stanford University that came to the conclusion that: “young people today write far more than any other generation before them”. It was found that thirty eight percent of this writing was online, and while society mocks the usage of Facebook or any other online networking system Thompson argues how it is beneficial, he states that because of online networking students are “remarkably adept what rhetoricians call karios-assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across”. Thompson continues to explain how even texting and status updating can promote better writing, he insists “it teaches young people do deploy haiku like concision”. Another point Thompson makes is how young people write for a wide variety of audiences. Individuals do not just write for a professor anymore and because of that Thompson suggests that young people are more enthusiastic about writing. Thompson proposes that when an individual knows who and why they are writing it “might be the most crucial factor of all”.

My own view is that the use of technology in this generation has completely changed the culture of our society but not in an unhelpful way. I feel that technology and the usage of blogging and updates is a freedom of expression. It can make an individual feel they have a say in the world around them and that their opinion is heard.

Though I concede that with the internet writing and texting, young people’s writing becomes brief and unstructured, I still maintain that even with the unstructured writing individuals are still capable of writing formal and structured pieces of writing. Andrea Lunsford, an English professor at Stanford University did a study on student writing and gathered thousands of writing examples from the students. Thompson states “she did not find a single example of texting speak in an academic paper”. This shows that even with free writing on blogs, texts and status updates, young people are still capable of writing a successful academic paper and that technology does not diminish writing skills.

I also believe online writing and texing are positive tools because as Thompson suggests when people exercise this type of writing they become excited about it. People are not just writing for a class assignment they are writing for themselves, for self fulfillment and even if the topic is about “Team Edward vs. Team Jacob”, politics or how the Seahawks beat the Saints last Saturday people are passionate about what they are writing and if one thinks about it what really is writing without passion?