Reading Response to Birkerts

Today, students are communicating more through technology such as emails, texting, Facebook, and, Myspace rather than in school on in class writing and texts. Students say that this is because they are able to communicate and write in their own form and style because they can choose their own audience. Where as in a classroom they are only writing to one person, their teacher. When writing an essay they are told to write in a certain form of writing, and when talking to friends and family their form of writing does not have any boundaries. In the article Clive Thompson on the New Literacy by Clive Thompson, states that students in our generation are writing more often due to technology witch Is helping our literacy and writing skills, as well as how we are communicating with one another. However, many still believe that technology is making us worse writers in the classroom.

I believe that technology is helping our generations way of writing because we are writing more often, though I also believe that it is dampering our communication face to face. When we talk to one another, I have noticed that students of our generation have a hard time looking one another in the eyes. Our communication and the language we use tends to have a lot of slang or language and abbreviations that we use when we text. The new literacy is affecting our lives, our education, and the way we communicate with each other.

Sven Birkerts, the author of the article The Owl Has Flown, talks about how we need to look deeper into the meaning and take time to analyze what we read. If we fail to do so, we are failing to gain the wisdom we need to know about a subject or topic and not just the “bits” and pieces of a topic. We are developing in terms of wisdom because of the constant onslaught of data and information in our lives. Birkerts also talks about how we aren’t used to diving into a book or reading because we don’t want to put in the work. Birkerts states, “A rather unfortunate vicious cycle can result, for the harder it is to do the work, the less inclined we are to do it. Paradoxically, the harder the work, the more we need to do it.” In other words, Birkerts is saying that we aren’t used to putting the work in but we need to in order to know and gain the wisdom from witch we are seeking it. Today, it is much easier for us to gain knowledge from watching TV. It is easy because all we need to do is sit on the coach and watch it being done right in front of us. Someone else did the research and all we need to do is sit and watch. Learning only the “bits” and pieces of the topic instead of reading it or doing it for ourselves.

This adds to my idea that we are losing communication face to face. It is easier to text or email because it is already at our fingertips; we don’t have to go any where or talk to anyone. Texting and emailing much more convenient. We aren’t used to having to talk face to face as much as we have needed to in the past because we now have new technology that will do it for us. We don’t put in the work as much as we should and I believe that we need to. Face to face communication is just as important as any other form.