Clive Thompson makes a bold assumption, in an article titled “The New Literacy” that was published in Wired Magazine. In one short paragraph he informs us of the experts, opinions of today’s students and their lack of ability to write a decent sentence let alone an essay. Who or what we ask is to blame for this downward spiral in today’s educated youth? Thompson claims that the experts, place the blame on today's technology. facebook, texting, video, power point all encourage shortcuts. Real writing isn't known to today's students. Although, for one reason or another, they, “the pundits.”(Thompson) who are so called experts would place the entire blame on technology is beyond me. In my option we send our children to school to learn the art of writing. If it takes gadgets such as twitter and text messaging to get the attention and involvement of our young then maybe it’s time to rethink the way we teach. Our ways of teaching have not kept up with technology and are still boring and out of date. Even so the kids of today have managed to do both it seems for Thompson has done some research on the subject and found studies that say otherwise. One of them was a very large project with vast amounts of information gathered, titled the Sanford Study of Writing. It studied everything from students in class writing assignments and formal essays to blog posts and e-mail text messages. Thompson has said that the conclusions found by Andrea Lunsford, the professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford was stunning.
Thompson states that in the study it was found that young people today prefer to use technology as a way of socializing, by the use of face book, texting one another, e-mailing, twittering or one of many options available. In doing so today's youth spends thirty eight percent of their day out of the classroom doing some kind of writing that they normally would not do. But the Lunsford team also asked them selves if this was a good thing on a professional level. What the team found was that on a technical level students were exceptionally apt at knowing who their audience was, and had a knack at being able to relate to them. "The fact that students almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing." (Andrea Lunsford)
The study also showed that students had no problem writing in class and did not carry texting tendencies into their projects. Added to the positives is the fact that the students of today seem better able to express themselves and work together as team because of the connection young people today can achieve with the advantages of today’s ease of being able to keep in instant touch with each other not only as individuals but also as groups. I have noticed personally that today’s students are also able to type on the keyboard with impressive speed and accuracy not from taking a class but from first hand experience.
What can be concluded from the article is that while technology may seem on the outside to be just a social gathering spot, to those who only use it for business reasons. It can also be a teaching tool for today’s youth. One that can be a valuable asset to them in the future, technology today, is not going to be what technology is tomorrow. Because for today’s youth it is imperative that they keep up with all that is available to them.
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