Reading Response 3 to Birkerts

My main concept of the in-class essay, regarding the article written by Clive Thompson on the “New Literacy,” was that technology has hindered a students writing. Clive Thompson introduced the idea that the technology world is conversational and public which makes it closer to the ancient Greek tradition of argument. Since we write online more than any other type of writing we can better identify the audience, of whom they are writing to, and adapt their writing styles to get their viewpoints across with more ease. This new shift of writing (writing by technology, or what I like to call “techno writing”) isn’t really new at all because we are going back to our roots of Greek tradition; then should a students writing deteriorate or improve? I believe it is dangerous to the English language when we overuse technology, however it can be very beneficial when used the right way.

We have become so attached to technology that we use it for personal matter more than to use it some other resourceful way to learn and succeed in life. We have become lethargic with the overuse of technology for the reason that it does everything for us. Sven Birkerts himself writes, “We depend far less on memory; that faculty has all but atrophied from lack of use. The lack of a larger perspective hobbles the mind, leads to suspiciousness and wary conservativism…the constant availability of data and macroperspectives has its own diminishing returns.” Birkerts is insisting that the overwhelmingly amount of information through the evolution of technology has in fact harmed our ability to contemplate what we are taking in as readers and writers. Birkerts continues, “But swamped by data, and in thrall to the technologies that manipulate it, we no longer think in these [wisdom] larger and necessarily more precise terms.” The essence of Birkerts’s argument is that due to technology we, as a whole, have not achieved the true core of wisdom. Birkerts’s thinking adds to my way of thinking that with technology and the vast amounts there is we are indolent and can’t think on our own. We do not try because we think it is too hard, and because we think this we are far from our highest potential.