Reading Response

In the article “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson a statement put forth that questions whether or not technology is benefiting or hindering our generations writing styles. In the begging of the article Clive Thompson states that “PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into "bleak, bald, sad shorthand”. By making this statement Clive Thompson makes the reader believe that he is against that idea, but then later contradicts himself an example of using “They say, I say” writing technique. Later in the article Thompson states one professor’s opinion that technology actually helps our generations writing. The professor that Thompson was referring to organized a mammoth survey of almost 15,000 students writings and she found evidence that suggests technology helps us in our writing. In the article the professor was quoted saying "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization,". She goes on to say that before the internet people never really wrote unless it was apart of their jobs. In modern times with Facebook and twitter people are talking writing and conversing all day everyday. The professor also goes on to say that “Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.” The study concludes that students like to write outside of the class room because they know there audience and there’s more then just one person the professor. The professors survey conveyed that “this explosion of prose good, on a technical level? Yes. Lunsford's team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across”.
As for my opinion on how technology affects our generations writing styles, and its benefits I agree with Clive Thompson and the professor. I know that I am writing and texting people and constantly adapting myself, my tones and writing styles to fit who I am talking to. The only thing that I see could be a problem is sometimes personally I forget how to spell certain things due to texting and abbreviating so much. Clive Thompson went on to say that “The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing” and I completely agree with that statement whole heartedly.