Reading Responce #1

In his recent work, "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy," Clive Thompson suffests that our use of social media such as facebook, myspace, etc. has actually encouraged writing for audiences.
Thompson urges that since students write almost everday for an audience, it fives them a different sence of what constitutes good writing. The students today are much better in debates, interviews, anything requiring an audience. He believes this new way of writing has been a major paradigm shift.
One implication of Thompson's treatment shift if that we are writing more than we have in ages, a lot like the Greed tradition of agrument.
Although Thompson doesn't say so directly, he apparently assumes that social media has played a great role in how students write today.

My own view is that technology has helped our writing and abilities to communicate. Technology has allowed us to be able to practice our writing, and become more comfortable with it. Before social media networks, before texting, people only wrote for school, work, and to write letters to friends. Today we are constantly writing, constantly exercising our brains. Instead of when we used to just sit on the couch rotting our brains away with tv, we find entertainment in puting our minds to work by blogging about interests, some healthy debating in chat rooms. Just think how often we write in one day. When you are texting your spouse to pick up the milk on the way home, when you are instant messaging your aunt on the other side of the state, when you are just venting about your day to your friend on the other side of the world, you are practicing your skills at writing. Think of how comfortable we are now with writing, we don't have to just sit there and be in fear, it's something that is natural to us.

Though I concede that a lot of us had rather write for an audience than we would an essay. Many of us would much rather open up our facebook and blog about our days and comment on others, than to open our homework assignment and write out a five hundred w0rd essay. We yawn as we see the sticky notes reminding us to get in gear and get it done with.
I do agree that social media can be very distracting in our lives, and at times we let it come before our reponsibilities.
I still maintain that students today are more comfortable with writing due to writing being a big part of our lives, and these social medias have made writing fun to the point that we are more at one with writing. The problem that we see today from these networks is really just us needing to be more self disiplined.
For example, we could easily turn the instant messengers off and shut off the cell phones while we write our papers. Facebook doesn't just force us to play in it instead of doing what we should be doing. Although some might object that technology has made it harder for us to study due to the major distraction. I reply that it is our own fault for letting it distact us, and the internet is a wonderful recourse for us to use in our achedemic lives.
The issue is important because the internet has really been an important tool in our lives today.