revised Final draft

Elvis Joseph
Mr. Leake
English 105-07
14 October 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. We can also look at other literary inspirations, for example, Gutenberg’s printing press. Here we can examine peoples’ reaction to the change in writing and reading habits and can compare that to our own changes (Carr). Now we exist at another focal point 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 – when people can stop remembering information because it is easily available.
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 asks if the internet has totally transformed humans in ways that we have yet to realize. “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 material. 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 patience 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 mentions 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 have 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 could not 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 discovered that I could not read the way I used to 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 introduced to 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 have proven that which Carr talks about – the change in the way we think – is true and I have 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 is on Carr’s side on the civic literacy issue. Both Hedges and Carr say that the new literary standpoint we have come upon is a terrible one that signals death in reading and writing (Carr) (Hedges). In Hedges’ article Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy, he 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 observes newspapers’ important role in 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 notes, is because of the lack of credibility, resources, time and training of bloggers. No one fires the bloggers and they almost never acknowledge their own faults (Hedges).
Hedges observes 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 – a point that Carr supports in his article. Carr would argue that it is because of the change in the way we think that we do not read newspapers or even read newspaper sites thoroughly (Carr) (Hedges). Therefore, Hedges thinks that these are “bad days for newsrooms” (Hedges). However, Hedges’ article has lacked substance in that he never does any serious research and most of his statements either aren’t validated at all or aren’t validated with proper sources. Whenever Hedges quoted any sources, he validated information not critical to proving his point, but rather some statistics to prove the obvious – such as the decline of newspapers. This is the biggest limitation in Hedges article and it considerably decreases the value of Hedges’ writing. Carr, on the other hand, isn’t as pessimistic as Hedges is even though they back each other’s points up. Carr also documents each and every source of information he uses to prove his point and makes sure that he does not just document random pieces of information. Carr supports key information for his points on civic literacy. Also, Carr keeps room for negotiation on his views unlike what Hedges does. This really helps Carr show his point in a positive light, something Hedges fails to do miserably.
William Badke follows Hedges and Carr’s line of thought. He too believes that the internet has 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 uses this sentence to show the ignorance and lack of use of libraries by today’s youth, who instead prefer to use Google for all research if possible.
Badke then notes that 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 (Badke). This backs up the points by Carr and Hedges where the focus is on the break-up of civic literacy in the world today. Like Carr, Badke’s article is well supported with appropriate sources that show strength in his point.
As if to shed a positive light on the issue of civic literacy, 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. Thompson pulls up a new idea that there is an ongoing “literacy revolution the likes of which we have not seen since the Greek civilization”. Thompson is very optimistic in his piece compared to Hedges, who is completely pessimistic of everything and everyone, Carr and Badke. 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). This is against the points Hedges, Badke and Carr make as the primary focus of their articles was how literacy was dying in the modern world.
The readers and writers of today are much different from those who 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 is not 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 many, such as Badke, Carr and Hedges may not see the different and better path that writing and reading on the web offers that benefits literacy as a whole, I believe that there is benefit (a whole new, radical way of the expression of thought), like the benefits of previous literary landmarks, that remains largely unrecognized.
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 prevalence of “pancake people” who know very little about a wide range of topics, and the change in the way we think) the same way other literary landmarks had. Indeed, the change in the way we think may also be one of the great advantages that happen during this period of literary change as it is a new and radical way for the expression of thought that may turn out to be beneficial in just the same way that previous changes in thinking were.




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. .