Internet Social Networking and the "New Literacy"

[Odin2005]

This article is a perfect rebuttal of the "Facebook and Twitter are corrupting the youth and making them stupid" rants spewed by the technophobes.

As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can't write—and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into "bleak, bald, sad shorthand" (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland has moaned). An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?

Andrea Lunsford isn't so sure. Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring.

"I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

More here: http://www.wired.com/print/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson

[XemaSab]

1. "Typing" is not "writing."

n/t

[Odin2005]

4. It's "writing" in the general sense; rendering language into a visual form.

[greyl]

10. Yeah, Stephen King never wrote a book in his life. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. So tell me what exaclty do I do every day?

Peck at a keyboard?

Who knew?

[greyl]

25. Jeez, maybe you need to calibrate your beak.

Unfortunate typo for ya there, nadin. ;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Social network and all

Kewl

:hi:

You know what I find hilarious, the number of ahem critics of this, using a social network...

and a blog.

To be ahem critical

Lt8r

[BlooInBloo]

41. It's not so much *typing* per se that is to be contrasted with writing in the full-blooded sense...

But rather *babbling*, which is the lion's share of what internet typing/writing consists in.

Babbling, however realized, is not writing in any sense that deserves a compliment. Only illiterates would maintain that it is.

[ddeclue]

2. except that it looks like:

HOW U DOIN' DID U STUDY B4 CLASS..


:rofl:

[Odin2005]

5. And I'm sure our ancestors never used short-hand...

...Oh, wait, they did. A lot of the diacritic marks originated as short-hand. Spanish "ñ" was originally "nn", the second N evolved into the tilde because of lazy scribes.

[msongs]

3. hi sup k koo ppl bye lol nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. That was just perfect -

You got me giggling.

I love these rationalizations put out by bloggers who are convinced not only of their original thinking, but who are eager to pander to the notion that they embrace the hip.

Anyone who's watched kids and how they stay in touch and the marvelous dexterity and speed with which they travel that highway can't help but be entertained. But, the idea that it's contributing to their literacy is so stupid that it goes beyond laughable, because it's entirely possible that someone might take this absurd notion seriously.

What it will contribute will be brand new adventures in variations on carpal tunnel syndrome, eyestrain, and time lost that might have been far more profitably spent reading something called a "book," one that was actually "written" by someone literate, the kind of stuff that goes beyond typing.

Clive Thompson has also put forth the notion that Twitter has created a "social sixth sense." They guy's stretching so far to endear himself to the technology that he's going to end up with a triple hernia.

Never, as one DUer already noted, confuse typing with literacy.................................................

[Odin2005]

9. Wow, such dismissive, pretentious nonsense.

It's only "absurd" to you because you don't truly UNDERSTAND the Internet. You remind me of my mother, telling me that Facebook is "Not REAL social interaction", then talking on the PHONE for 2 hours.

Oh, they have E-books now, in case you didn't know. The physical medium is IRRELEVANT, it is the information itself that is important.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. Wow!

And it wasn't even addressed to you, but to the DUer who shared my opinion and who made me laugh.

Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that someone has an opinion different from yours?

You don't remind me of any of my children. My children are smart and respectful of the opinions and idea of others, and they have lovely manners. They're nice people. I'm very proud of them. It sounds like you have a certain contempt for your Mother, which is unfortunate.

If it makes you feel better to infer - without any concrete information - what I know or what I don't know, that's fine. Your blathering simply exemplifies that sort of sub-literate approach to others that is contained within that silly Thompson's palaver.

The books I write are out in E-book format. And I get money every time one is sold, so download away, and keep those checks rolling in for me, thank you very much.

When you have to attack someone who has a different perspective on something, it simply underscores the weakness of your position. Too bad you can't be strong, but, hey, you're attempting to defend something that's not very defensible.

If getting all ditzy with me makes you feel better, have at it. No one needs to have that kind of resentment without occasionally venting it. Otherwise, bad things might happen.........................................

[Odin2005]

13. No, I love my mother just fine.

I just like giving older folks a bad time when they don't "get them new-fangled contraptions"

I definitely don't like your accusation that I'm "sub-literate". I read A LOT. I also don't get the notion that short-hand forms like "l8er" are bad and "illiterate", it's not like people are writing a formal paper, here. I use forms like "gonna" all the time, it's doesn't mean I'm stupid or illiterate.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rob Gregory Browne]

21. I wouldn't call what people do on social networks typing

As a former typist (secretary) and now writer (novels), I can tell you there's a significant difference between simply typing what someone else has written and formulating ideas into words and sentences and writing them down, no matter how rudimentary those words and sentences may be. Anything that gets kids and many adults to contribute to keeping the written word alive can only be a good thing. Like this forum, for example.

Your condescending dismissal of blogs and social networking is not only rude, it's dead wrong.

rgb

[Tangerine LaBamba]

22. Uh-huh,

and as a former secretary and now a novelist - I'm with HarperCollins, and, yes, I take money from Rupert Murdoch - I really do know what "writing" is. Honestly, I really do.

Your post is funny. Thank you.................

[Rob Gregory Browne]

27. As Robert Browning said:

... looking downward makes one dizzy.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

33. Ohhhhhhhh -

literary!

God bless Bartlett's, and good luck with your career as a novelist....

[Rob Gregory Browne]

35. Good luck to you as well

We should have a drink sometime. Maybe we can act like civilized adults and actually find some common ground. Of course, I have no idea who you are...

[arcadian]

6. So, I guess, this qualifies as superb writing:

A: Sup?
B: Nothin' Sup with you?
A: Nothin'

[Odin2005]

8. You must have missed this part of the article:

"But is this explosion of prose good, on a technical level? Yes. Lunsford's team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago."



There is nothing objectively wrong with "Sup? Nothin'; sup with you? Nothin'.", it is a visual rendering of how we would actual SAY that stuff, it's about not looking informal and not looking like a pretentious snob. EVERYONE "drops their Gs" on the -ing ending is normal conversation, you are a liar if you say you don't, and you are a liar if you claim to never used reduced forms like "Sup" or "Gonna" in conversation.

[abumbyanyothername]

39. I agree that the online message board experience

is the closest thing I have found in my 52 years to the agora of Socrates and Plato.

If it often degenerates into name calling, and flame throwing it is because neither of the participants has the tact, patience, natural curiosity and instant intelligence of a Socrates.

[Odin2005]

45. And we all know what happened to Socrates.

[kimmylavin]

42. But that's not literacy.

I work at a theater, with lots of kids.
We had a theft incident.
We asked the girl who had her iPod stolen to write out a report of what she thought happened.
She was asked to gather her thoughts, and then send an email from home.

It was appalling.
She included each filler someone would use in conversation (um, yeah, ya, like, you know, ya know, gonna), the punctuation seemed to be arbitrary, the formatting was absent (one block of text for what should have been at least three paragraphs), the spelling rendered some words unrecognizable, fully one quarter of the words used were texting shortcuts, and in the end, it made no sense at all.

She was 17.
Heading to college.
I would like to think she's in for a shock, but since I went to college with people who couldn't write a simple sentence (let alone an essay), I'm not holding my breath.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

12. "New literacy" like "new investing" and "new banking" and "new way to view your home...

as an ATM" is my guess. I use Twitter and Facebook, but don't take them seriously. Calling it a literacy revolution "the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization" is laughable.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

15. Check out some of the other things

Clive Thompson has written.

He builds on his own silly theories, another crazed blogger who thinks he's an original thinker.

Or is that "orgnl thnkr"?

[WorseBeforeBetter]

23. Ah, yes, the self-important *original* thinkers.

Not to mention the whining and constant need for validation.

I do consider this blog worthwhile:

http://stfumarrieds.tumblr.com/

"B" list, my ass!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

24. Nice site -

and, yes, its very existence elevates the intellectual achievements of us all.

That site's as bad as watching vacation videos. Baby movies. Being stuck at a dinner party with a married couple who's fighting.............................

[voc]

17. +1

[NashVegas]

29. New School Teaching Requirements

Check out the writing forum for a thread I started. There's a Vanderbilt paper floating around out there that says high school teachers aren't doing enough to help students develop good writing skills.

Load of bullshit. Good writers aren't made in high school; kids come in with the desire or they don't, and teachers help those who have the desire learn the ropes. Those who don't have the desire have access to all the same lectures and materials. It's their choice to learn, or not.

[SmileyRose]

16. If it works for you in the world you will live in then great.

For me, I wish for you the great joy of everything that happens when all the gadgets are off for an extended length of time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Hmm this is why we have had a couple young kids make it

as literati...

See Eragon...

And I now expect the hilarity to ensue from the but twitter is 'tupid crowd.

[Odin2005]

28. They can't help it, they simply don't know any better.

[rug]

20. kewl

[JCMach1]

30. I would recommend that nay-sayers read the whole article

the new technologies are raising student awareness of audience among other things...

I am sure there were plenty of people around screaming how printed books would ruin literacy. After all, wasn't copying them yourself one of the main points!


I saw Andrew Motion, Britain's former poet laureate, on BBC's Hardtalk today talking about how the his creating poetryarchive.org serves over 1million pages per day. Ignore the new literacy at your peril... And remember, it's not just TWITTER...

[Odin2005]

31. Hell, Plato was whining that writing was bad for memory.

This shit has gone one since the beginning of time.

[Le Taz Hot]

32. Couldn't possibly be that they're

trying to justify their illiteracy. Nope, couldn't be that. Learning to reed & rite is hard.

[Odin2005]

34. Looks like you didn't even read the whole article.

[smoochpooch]

36. Yes, people write good because there social networking.

I read the article. The study appears to focus on Stanford students so I should hope that they're able to write proficiently. I agree with the other posters, the article and study seem like it is just trying to assign value to something that really doesn't have any.

[Uncle Joe]

37. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Odin.:thumbsup:

[Odin2005]

38. You are Welcome!

:hi:

[BlooInBloo]

40. And illiterates implicitly enjoy the asinine conceit that one can't be "literate" in both ways.

[TexasObserver]

43. Writing by the young is getting worse, not better.

spl ng
txt ng
no punct u a shun

We don't need no stinkin' rules!

[Odin2005]

44. Don't confuse formal writing and informal communication and short-hand.

I use "gonna", "ain't", and double negatives all the time in informal communication, that doesn't mean I don't know good standard formal "standard" English usage.