Quote: '“We need to decide whether we wish to take writing seriously and if we value the importance of a properly chosen word,” Baron says.'
I find that this decision is made every time someone writes to someone else. This connects back to audience affecting how the person sending the message writes. This is what determines the seriousness of the writing and the importance of proper word choice.
" Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?"
Quote: "Nicholas Carr sounded a similar note in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in the current issue of the Atlantic magazine. Warning that the Web was changing the way he — and others — think, he suggested that the effects of Internet reading extended beyond the falling test scores of adolescence."
When I read these sentences I could only think of this being some sort of ignorance of how Google has affected thinking. It is my belief that Google does not take away, but relieves the mind of a task that is has not become necessary. Recall of mundane facts are no longer needed and more focus on critical thinking by using the information that is found on Google can help us become masters of multiple subjects. If anything, it gives everyone a broader understanding of all subjects.
The Stance Dance:
Overall I would put myself on the side of Web Evangelist rather than Traditionalist but, like most things, I prefer to be between the two, Digital media is definitely changing the way people read and write. It allows for people to find specific information quicker and writing has been taken down to almost exclusively grammatical errors with word processing. The downside of this is that the reading of books and when search for specific content there is a lot of other valuable information that is lost. Writing might be down to mostly grammatical errors, but now they are very prominent and becoming more accepted to occur as long as the main message is still received. This is seen in the Rich article when the young girl is reading her fan fiction; the content makes sense, but the grammar is not on par. I have noticed that it also has made the professional messages less professional because people are so use to communicating in this manner.
The first quote and your response to it drove home a point that was sort of already floating around in my mind. We’re debating as to whether or not digital media devalues words and language, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that the point of language is ultimately to express a concept. Regardless of the medium that we use, we’re still expressing these concepts. It’s like the adage of comparing apples to oranges; ultimately they’re both still fruit. And yes, that was a reference to the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
ReplyDeleteI highlighted the same quote by Nicholas Carr, but ended up not using it in my post. What struck me about it was that he goes on to blame the internet for “chipping away [his] capacity for concentration and contemplation” which I honestly felt was a stretch. That isn’t to say he is lying about his inability to adhere to reading a long book as he claims, but that there could be a variety of factors that make that the case; in my opinion there is no correlation.
With that said, I find that while I’m reading for research purposes, I prefer using digital formats because I can often find what I’m looking for much quicker, access more, and therefore read more. Likewise, there are some topics that I only want a cursory glance at, and again, digital media makes that easier. There are situations where I’d prefer not to read at all and prefer a video, for example if it’s a set of instructions. So while digital media has changed some aspects of how I read or access information, it hasn’t lessened my abilities.
However, I can’t confidently state that isn’t the case for today’s youth. Technology was obviously different when I went to school, therefore I was taught different methods. Can digital media affect their reading and writing practices when they’ve not had a lot of exposure to anything different?
As an aside, I liked your metaphor. It takes “consuming media” to a totally new level.