Evan
Steinhorst
1/25/13
Writing
and Rhetoric
Literacy
and the Modern World
For too long the concept of literacy has
been debated. Its meaning, its purpose,
its very characteristics; all of it have been analyzed to the point of
absurdity. And yet, it just keeps
going. Like a never-ending plague, it
just won’t end! But I’m afraid that’s
not the point of this essay. If so, this
quite possible could be the easiest essay ever written. Unfortunately, I’m here to answer the
question of whether our modern technology, the Internet specifically, has
affected our literary abilities positively or negatively. With my infinite wisdom and knowledge
accumulated over the past few weeks I can say with certainty that the answer is
yes and no. Now before you question my
indecisiveness let me say that it is valid.
With respect to the fact that my
generation is smack in the middle of this technological boom, it’s not
unreasonable for one to suspect me to be bias.
But it’s quite the contrary! Our
modern era has injured the literary habits of the world. The greatest example of this is right in
front of you now; it’s always in front of you.
The Internet. With the Internet’s
conception we have gained the ability to access information quickly and
easily. And yes, the whole “touch of a
button” phrase does indeed apply here.
We have Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
These massive search engines house more information then could be looked
at in an entire lifetime. Facebook,
Twitter, and other social networking sites have also become a source of
information sharing. However, this easy
information access is not all it’s cracked up to be. In Nicholas Carr’s article, Is Google Making us Stupid, he argues
that this easy access to information is having adverse affects on our attention
spans. Carr, an American writer and winner
of the Pulitzer Prize in 2011, asserts that we are losing the ability to
concentrate on anything longer than a few pages. “Now my concentration often starts to drift
after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for
something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to
the text.” Take a minute to think about
the last time you had to read something longer then a page? Did you begin to lose interest or start to
wonder about other things? Likely you
did. I know that I am guilty of such concentration failure. I’ll even admit that when first reading
Carr’s article, I even found myself mentally drifting away! We are constantly faced with quick, easy, and
short blurbs of information that we are losing the ability to sit down and
read. When I look at an article on The
New York Times or on MSNBC, the article usually consists of a few paragraphs to
a few pages. However, they all lack specifics and only give a modest amount of
useful information. It’s a classic case
of quantity over quality I’m afraid. But
it doesn’t end there, it never does. For
in close association with our lack of concentration is our substitution of
purpose with entertainment. Basically,
the assertion is that we are throwing out all meaning in our society for sheer
entertainment. And while it may seem
farfetched, the facts do speak for themselves.
Chris Hedges, and American Journalist, said it best in a passage from
his article America the Illiterate:
In
an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional
gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and
entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can
be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that
we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious
future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because
we are blessed by God or both.
I
cannot, myself, deny the existence of this entertainment over purpose aspect
that has begun to consume our world. Such
sites as Imgur and Reddit are prime examples of this hostile takeover. These sites, and those like them, have become
the vain of countless college students.
I myself am an Imgur addict. But image
sites are just the tip of the entertainment iceberg. In a revelation that had
me speechless, Hedges astoundingly discovers how far this entertainment
supplement has gone:
During
the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore
at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a
seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level
(6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard
Nixon, the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and
12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to
a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted
to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are
entertained at this level.
I
don’t know about you, but this terrifies me.
To think that our literacy has degraded to a 6th grade reading
level, that’s what’s used to govern our nation.
Now if that didn’t scare you, nothing else will. Now there may be some of you thinking “But
that’s still the ability to read? Is that not literacy?” Well not according to Hedges. Hedges does not believe literacy is the
ability to read or write. No, for him it is the ability to read and write with
purpose. And to an extent I do agree
with him. The rest of Hedges’s article
is constant ranting and insulting putdowns directed towards the American public
for their literary failure. But my
friends do not fret; there is a head for every tail of a coin. Or a silver lining behind every cloud.
If you have made it this far without
getting bored and checking Facebook, or even scared off I congratulate
you. You have stuck it to Hedges! And if
you have or ever read his America the
Illiterate you’ll understand what I mean.
Anyway, let us now turn out attention the benefits that this
technological monst--- I mean masterpiece has done for us all.
In
all honesty, we have truly benefited in the literary sphere, I mean just look
how exposed we are to it. In perhaps the
first article to ever defend my generations texting and social media using, Andrea
Lunsford, gives those technophobics a good one-two punch. Lunsford, a former professor at Stanford
University and Director of its Writing and Rhetoric department, argues in, Our semi-literate Youth? Not So Fast,
that our developing technology has allowed my generation to become exposed to
new forms of literacy. “So yes, these
students did plenty of emailing, and texting: they were online a good part of
every day; they joined social networking sites enthusiastically.” This is what many people attribute as the
cause of this perceived illiteracy that has taken a hold of our lives. “But rather than leading to a new illiteracy,
these activities seemed to help them developed a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range
of abilities.” We finally have an
argument for why we should be texting at the dinner table or class; we are
improving our literary capabilities! But
if you like that you’ll love this. “In short we found that students today
certainly make errors—as all writers do—but that they are making no more errors
than pervious studies have documented. Different errors yes—but more errors
no.” See guys, we aren’t giant failures,
we are just like everyone else; average failures.
Remember
how I said that because of the Internet we are beginning to supplement quality
with quantity? Well that still remains
true, but it would be imprudent of me to ignore the benefits that are also
gained. While its true that we are
losing an aspect of quality, the quantity we are gaining is nothing to smirk
at. We, above all other generations, are the most informed. No other generation has ever been as in touch
with our fellow human brethren across the globes as us. It was thanks to social networking that
allowed the Arab Spring revolts of 2011 to take place and Egypt among others
managed to overthrow their oppressive governments. Small Wars Journal’s TJ Waters had made a brilliant correlation
between the use of social media and it’s new literary prowess and the
substantial reform of the Arab Spring:
Social media eliminates two important impediments
to communication – distance and delay – creating new pathways for people to
connect in near-real time. But the social networks themselves are
insufficient to drive a population to the streets. It is the increased
use of these systems on mobile platforms that has created new expressions of
leverage and power.
American
psychologist Sylvia Scribner, who devoted her time to understand literacy and
the human mind, claims that literacy is a powerful tool for power in her
article Literacy in Three Metaphores. “The
International Symposium for Literacy, meeting in Persepolis, Iran (Bataille
1976), appealed to national governments to consider literacy as an instrument
for human liberation and social change.”
These two pieces were published decades apart, but they correlate so
well that there can be little doubt of the power literacy can hold. And when used correctly it can change the world
for the better. If you have stuck it out
with me for this long let me just say thank you! And for your loyalty I will reward you with
the greatest benefit bestowed upon us by our technologically influenced
literacy---freedom and closeness.
I’m
afraid I won’t have too many sources or references for this part. I suppose
you’ll just have to trust my word, but haven’t I lied to you yet. Let me start off with “closeness”. Now what in heaven’s name could I mean by
that? Because we are so easily connected
with others around the world we are constantly exposed to new ideas and
beliefs. Cultures, religions, ideas,
practices, languages, all these new and diverse concepts that we normally would
never interact with in our own personal bubble are right there in front of us
thanks to social media, or should I say social literacy. Unlike past generations we are able to
interact with people, at real-time, from across the globe. Because of this we are mixing, meeting, and
socializing the many different human forms of literacy. I’ve said in a past blog post that literacy and
humanity is one in the same. “It
has changed and evolved from oral speech, hieroglyphics, calligraphy, cursive,
print, text, and images. Because literacy is a human construct, it makes
sense that it would be as adaptive and diverse as mankind.” And now more then ever we are able to expand
that literary melting pot. But is still
goes far beyond that, because from closeness we gain a greater freedom. With the invention of the Internet we can
freely post what we feel and think.
While that may not be true for some parts of the world, for arguments
sake, we will focus on those that can.
In the United States we have the freedom of expression. Blogging, the first topic we looked at, has
become a way for many writers, famous or otherwise, to express what they cannot
on social media or in social contexts.
Andrew Sullivan, famous blogger and former editor, believes that the
introduction of blogging has greatly increased the circulation of ideas and
discussions. It is in his article Why I Blog that Sullivan explains the
appeal of blogging:
It was obvious from the start that it was
revolutionary. Every writer since the printing press has longed for a means to
publish himself and reach—instantly—any reader on Earth. Every professional
writer has paid some dues waiting for an editor’s nod, or enduring a
publisher’s incompetence, or being ground to literary dust by a legion of
fact-checkers and copy editors. If you added up the time a writer once had to
spend finding an outlet, impressing editors, sucking up to proprietors, and
proofreading edits, you’d find another lifetime buried in the interstices. But
with one click of the Publish Now button, all these troubles evaporated.
From
a sociological perspective, we hide who we are.
We really do. We wear mask to
disguise our true selves in order to move along, day to day, in this
world. But blogging allows so many to
freely express their true thoughts, without the fear of personal
retribution. This new literary era has
allowed us to do something no other generation in history could do, be
ourselves.
Literacy is always in movement,
changing and adapting with the times.
While this generation surely faces some issues and concerns with this
newest version, it also has new opportunities and benefits not available to
previous generations. We should confront
these concerns and harvest the benefits.
For those who fear this change let me remind you that when life does not
change it becomes stagnant. When stagnant, it dies. And for those who ignore the issues facing
us, remember that a small tear in a piece of paper is all that’s needed to rip
the whole thing apart.
Thanks To:
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google
Making Us Stupid." What the Internet is doing to our brains.
n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
Hedges, Chris. "America
the Illiterate." (11/08/08): n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/
Lunsford, Andrea. "Our
Semi-Literate Youth? Not So Fast." n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://www.stanford.edu/group/ssw/cgi-bin/materials/OPED_Our_Semi-Literate_Youth.pdf
Scribner, Sylvia.
"Literacy in Three Metaphors." n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1085087?seq=1
Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I
blog." n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/
Waters, TJ. "Social Media
and Arab Spring." (11/14/12): n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/social-media-and-the-arab-spring
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