Reading Response 1

In the article “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson. There is a debate about the effect of technology on the writing of our generation. Some people like Professor John Sutherland have called it “bleak, bald, sad, shorthand.” While others like Professor Andrea Lunsford think “We are in the midst of a writing revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since the Greek Civilization.” Lunsford has also said “Technology isn't killing our ability to write, it is reviving it, pushing it in bold new directions.”
Lunsford thinks we are redefining writing because we write for an audience. When we write something we make it easy for anybody to understand what we are saying. By reading Thompson's article you can safely assume that he tends to agree with Lunsford because a majority of the information he presents in his article support Lunsford's claims. Thompson also makes several points of his own to show that technology has had a positive effect on writing. Thompson said “Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything that wasn't a school assignment or if it was required by there job to produce text, they would leave school and never write a paragraph again.”

This is not a subject that I personally have often thought of. However after reading this article and giving this debate some thought I can say that I agree with Lunsford think technology is not hurting our writing, simply changing it. I do admit that our way of writing is not very well crafted or fluent like the writing of earlier generations. I still think that we are changing writing for the better. My main reason for taking this side of the issue is because I appreciate the new way of writing from the audience's point of view. I like how easy it is to learn something new or to understand what someone is trying to say, because there is so much information written all over the Internet that was written so it would be easy for us to understand. For example you can go on the internet and look for instructions to tie a tie, and someone will have written easy to follow instructions on how to that. Not a multiple paragraph essay about it. This is my main reason for preferring our type of writing to long essays. Some people may argue that writing long essays improve the flow of your writing and helps to build technique, and I would agree with this argument because they does help to improve many different writing skills. However I would say that I prefer our more simple form of writing in most instances. I would rather write for an audience because it is easier for the reader to understand and it is easier for the author to write then a lengthy essay. I think this is an important issue because it could effect future English classes and how they are taught. Will they be taught as they have been in the past? Or will they be changed and adapted just like our style of writing has been? Only time will tell.