Backup: Essay 1 - Rough Draft

Elvis Joseph

Mr. Leake

English 105

28 September 2009

Revolutionary Literacy

We are changing. Stopping the relentless pull of time is impossible, but what we can do is see how we have changed during that period. We can look back into ancient days when man began putting down ideas and see the reactions society had to that new idea. Another one of these few literary inspiration is seen at the time of the Gutenberg’s printing press. Here we can examine people’s reaction to the change in writing and reading habits and we can compare that to our own (Carr).

Now we are at another one of these focal points of change where we can draw upon past human experiences and see how the future may turn out. Now is the age of quick, accessible information – where people can stop remembering information because they can find what they need without any hassle.

Various opinions have been made on how the internet is changing us and especially how it changes the way we think. Some of these opinions come from some notable writers such as Clive Thompson, Chris Hedges and Nicholas Carr. Carr tells of how the internet has totally transformed humans, and we have yet to realize it. “What if I do so much reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed” (Carr). In this simple statement, Carr summarizes his entire article and at the same time, expresses a profound concept and way of looking at this situation. Carr argues that humans are inevitably “not only what we read. We are how we read” (Carr).

Carr argues that the new web age has brought about a transformation not just in how we collect information, but also in how we read the material presented to us. Carr says that now we just “zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski”. This quote effectively captures Carr’s point – we just “bounce” from webpage to webpage, lacking the patient to read anything in depth at all, while not thoroughly reading anything. This has apparently changed the way and the pace at which we absorb information and thus the way we think. Carr then goes onto to mention previous literary landmarks such as the invention and popularization of writing and the easy availability of books being made – both of which were frowned upon but ultimately ended up being the giant that the dwarf sat on to be taller than the giant (Carr).

I’ve seen the proof of Carr’s opinion in my own life. Before summer break, I usually spent my free time just cooped up near the fireplace, soaking up a good fantasy book – not browsing through social networking sites. Then when school was done, I put down the books and delved into the intricacies of the web (particularly facebook). This, I led myself to believe, was a radical change in myself, something I was proud of. That was until school started again and I brought the Devil’s Highway with the intent of immersing myself in it. It turned out that I couldn’t last 3 pages without either falling asleep or changing my facebook status.

Frantically, I ditched the new book for one of my long-time favorites - The Lord of the Rings. I can only describe the feeling as true horror as I learnt that I couldn’t read anymore. After the first few paragraphs, I would unintentionally start to skim and before long I would give up on my reading. That was about when I was brought Carr’s article as an assignment. I admit that even though I found the subject very interesting and pertaining to my situation, I skimmed the last few pages. In my own way, I’ve proven that what Carr talks about – the change in the way we think – is true and come to realize and accept this truth. I’ll confess that I changed my facebook status to “I HAVE TO DO THIS OR I WILL DIE” just as I was about to get this paragraph finished.

Chris Hedges, in his article Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy, is overly pessimistic about the United States and the new generation. He starts out by stating that newspapers are on the rapid decline. Hedges then talks about how newspapers are very important to society. In Hedges’ words, “Newspapers, when well run, are a public trust. They provide, at their best, the means for citizens to examine themselves, to ferret out lies and the abuse of power by elected officials and corrupt businesses, to give a voice to those who would, without the press, have no voice, and to follow, in ways a private citizen cannot, the daily workings of local, state and federal government” (Hedges). These veritable facts shown in the print cannot be compared to the writings on the internet, especially those of bloggers according to Hedges. This, Hedges says, is because of the lack of credibility of the bloggers. No one fires the bloggers and they almost never acknowledge their own faults.

Hedges goes on to say that the Internet cannot take up the mantle of newspapers mainly because the internet is made for browsing not reading and according to Hedges, it shows. People spend much less time on newspaper sites than they do on newspaper themselves. Because of this, Hedges thinks that these days are bad days for newsrooms (Hedges).

William Badke follows Hedges line of thought. He too believes that the internet had degraded our critical thinking and research capability. Badke writes, “Encountering the library's information environment is like facing raging beast after raging beast until you pathetically retreat to the info desk, forced to explain your ignorance and raw fear to a stranger”(Badke). Badke uses this sentence to show the ignorance and lack of use of libraries by the youth today who instead use Google for all research if possible.

Badke then goes on to show how the “older” generation today has failed the younger generation. He says that his generation has “failed to explain to this generation what kind of information they were dealing with when they threw words into Google's search box. They were not terribly familiar with the mechanisms that were in place earlier to achieve quality control and to determine what could be viewed as scholarly, or even reliable, information. They had no means to distinguish the essential difference between traditional publications and the average website” (Badke). Badke then cuts down to the heart of the matter saying that there is a breakdown of knowledge and a sudden increase in inadequate research because students nowadays prefer using any website off Google over the scholarly paper written by the seasoned university professor.

As if to shed a positive light on this discussion, Clive Thompson’s article brings about it not just solid facts but hope for a better future. Thompson quotes, Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, whose opinion is based upon a study of college students between their academic and social writing. Clive Thompson pulls up a new idea that there is an ongoing “literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization”. Thompson is very optimistic in his piece compared to Hedges who is completely pessimistic of everything and everyone. Thompson writes that most students today write much more than students did fifty years back. Also, he writes that there is no destructive change in academic writing as a result of the new forms of short-hand typing such as texting or Twitter updates (Thompson).

In my opinion, the readers and writers of today are much different from those that lived a generation ago. We rely much more on the web than we thought and our dependence maybe our greatest achievement or our greatest undoing. We are becoming more impatient as both writers and readers and this is becoming readily apparent in our blog posts and in our inability to read from un-condensed passages. However, I think that there is a huge advantage here that isn’t readily visible. An advantage that may lead us into writing and reading into a whole new, radical way that is very benefiting to literacy as a whole (along with Thompson’s point). Even though a lot of people such as Badke, Carr and Hedges may not see the different and better path that writing and reading on the blog will show that helps literacy as a whole, I believe that there is benefit, like the benefits of previous literary landmarks that were put down at their time.

In my opinion, this new form of reading and writing (brought on with the dawn of the internet) is our greatest achievement, because in just the same way humans put thoughts into writing and made published writing more available through the Gutenberg’s printing press, we are now making our own great literary landmark – writing and reading on the internet – even though it may have its own short-term disadvantages the same way other literary landmarks had.

Works Cited

Badke, William. "How We Failed the Net Generation." Online 33.4 (July 2009): 47. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 28 Sep. 2009 .

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?." Atlantic Aug 2008. 28 Sep 2009. .

Hedges, Chris. "Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy." 21 July 2008. Truthdig, Web. 28 Sep 2009. .

Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." 24 Aug 2009. Wired Magazine, Web. 28 Sep 2009. .