Corrina B. New Literacy

After reading Clive Thompson’s “The New Literacy” I had a completely different perspective on the somewhat new craze of technology use. I had first believed that all the computer and palm pilot use was numbing us as an American society. While I still feel that the constant use of computers and other technology items is cutting off some values we as Americans should always uphold, I have to put my defenses down and agree with some of the positive changes that are coming about now days. Clive Thompson explores the benefits that our generations are taking advantage of through computers. Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University had conducted a study to see if the papers that students write today are affected at all by the constant use of computers. “Young people today write far more than any other generation before them.” (Thompson par 4). Because so many people, especially students are using computers and phones to communicate we are actually writing more than any generation has before. Majorities of this writing is happening outside of the classroom in emails over facebook, text messaging, and even twitter Lunsford has a special name for this writing called Life writing. Before the internet and computers for that matter ever really came about people would not write. The only writing people would do was what would be required for class assignments or in some cases a job that required daily writing. “They’d leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.” (Thompson par 5). In his paper Thompson states 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.” (Thompson par 7.) When you post something online someone else can always have access to this and read what you post. From your facebook status to an online journal. People are realizing that they are having an audience and because of that they are taking more seriously what they post and write. They want what they say to mean something to someone else. Writing isn’t just good or bad anymore. People are realizing that it is knowing who we are writing for and why we are writing what we are is quite possibly the most important thing in today’s writing.