As technology grow and increasingly gets bigger and and better people are finding new ways to harness that information and use it to their advantage and learn from it. Clive Thompson suggests that technology is even helping literacy and this young generation. He states that “Young people write far more than any generation before them”(Source 7). You can thank Twitter and Facebook for the mass amount of posts and writing from teens. Thompson followingly says that “students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos - addressing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across.(Source 7)
Next, he supports his claim by addressing how writing changes an individual’s cognitive behavior and the cognitive effort generating text does to one’s memory. Thompson finally introduces the impact of the theory of multiples. In my analysis of Thompson’s text, I will examine, analyze and evaluate his central claims and the evidence he uses to support these claims to prove that the internet has helped us as writers. Thompson’s purpose is to persuade the audience that the internet is a central part of learning in order to improve the quality of
Public Thinking Analysis Have you ever wondered how technology can help increase the clarity of your writing? In the chapter, “Public Thinking” in the book Smarter Than You Think Clive Thompson (2013), a well- known Canadian journalist promotes online public thinking. Being born in 1968, it is ironic how he supports the use of technology rather than trying to convince his audience the downside of it. Thompson works as a journalist, blogger, and technology writer influences his use of technology and how it inspires better writing through public publishing.
Nicholas Carr makes claims about his own ideas supported by evidence from experts before providing his own rhetorical interpretation for his readers to consider. The question "Is Google Making Us Stupid" is posed by Nicholas Carr to determine whether our use of the internet has an impact on how our brains process written material. In order to connect with his audience, Carr employs ethos as a rhetorical strategy. He argues through the concept of ethos that the internet has produced a society where people are more concerned with getting quick information than setting aside time to read and relize an article.
In his book Smarter Than You Think, Clive Thompson aims to persuade the readers into believing that technology has had a positive impact on our society and the World as a whole. He claims that technology has improved our retention rates, allows us to write and think with global audiences and even improves our senses. How does he persuade us to believe his claims? He gives us many examples of people and their inventions, and how these inventions have had positive impacts on our society. One example he gives us is Ory Okolloh, a woman who created a website that played an important role during the disputed presidential elections in Kenya in 2007.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Nicholas Carr asserts that increased Internet usage is negatively impacting people’s capacity for concentration and contemplation. Because people are spending more time on the Internet where texts are framed by numerous advertisements, they are no longer able to fully immerse themselves in reading material. He uses Friedrich Nietzsche as a prime example of how regular media usage can have detrimental effects on an individual’s reading and writing skills. Relying on observations made by German scholar Friedrich A. Kittler, Carr explains how Nietzsche’s writing, which had been eloquent when Nietzsche had handwritten all of his work, became telegraphic and prosaic after he started to use a typewriter.
He asserts the different ways and examples on how the internet has had effect in our brain and our way of thinking. First, in agreement with the author’s argument about the how the internet is fundamentally changing our lives in the way we think and process information. He is right because the internet has been the main source of information that most people use nowadays to make their work more easier and faster. People tend not to think straight anymore to do things right because of the internet which brings more easier information than for us to use our brain. According to carr, he gives the example of Friedrich Nietzsche’s typewriter to show that the prolonged use of such a new medium could have a possible result of an overall
He notes that the development of writing and the printing press led to significant changes in the way people thought and communicated. By comparing the internet to these historical developments, Carr suggests that the digital age is simply the latest iteration in a long line of technological advances that have fundamentally altered human cognition. In addition, Carr appeals to expert testimony to support his argument. He cites studies and quotes from prominent neuroscientists and researchers who suggest that the internet may be negatively impacting our ability to concentrate and process information.
Are our communication skills declining due to the vast internet use? Technology has given individuals the ability to do things that would otherwise be considered impossible. However, while technology has provided the ability to communicate with people halfway across the world and opened a comfortable space for teens, it is believed to have affected not just the interaction among others, but furthermore writing skills. Although technology and communication has given individuals the ability to do things that would not have been done before, writing online has had a negative impact on a person’s writing skills which can be proven through the writings of Malcolm X, Gannon, and Daum.
In “Should Everybody Write?” by Dennis Baron —a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois— argues that a lot more people are writing due to technological advancement. Earlier technology such as the pen, typewriter, and the printing press have expanded who gets to write. Today, the computer and the internet allows anyone to be a writer as Baron simply states “thanks to the computer and the internet, anyone can be a writer: all you need is a laptop, a Wi-Fi card, and a place to sit at Starbucks” (840). People can “bypass the usual quality controls set by reviewers, editors and publishers” (841). While nowadays anyone can publish their writing without trouble it wasn’t always that way.
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan believes that “the more we use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing” (315). The Web has caused people to loose their patience for reading long pieces of writing and only partially read it. Bruce Friedman, a blogger, admits that he has lost his ability to read long articles. Three to four paragraphs have become too much for him to read, so he just skims it (316). Maryanne Wolf, a phycologist, worries that the internet’s reading style is weakening our capacity for deep reading because it puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else (317).
Not So Fast” Andrea Lunsford researched students’ writing for 30-plus years to see what effect new technology has on how students learn. Lunsford discovered that students are actually improving their own writing skills with the help of mass media. Not only does it allow students more access to educational resources and information, but it also encourages students to do more creative thinking and writing outside of class which Lunsford refers to in her article as “life writing.” In her research she recalls the account of a student who sent a friend a text message which was completely informal and would be considered unprofessional by most piers. However, the same student also sent a very formal and professional report to her faculty adviser later on.
According to Nicholas Carr, the author of the article Is Google Making Us Stupid?, “Research that once required days” is able to be “done in minutes.”. This demonstrates how through the presence of the net, users are able to complete the same tasks in a significantly less amount of time than what it would have taken them previously. Personally, through the decrease in time needed to perform research, I am able to have more free time, where I can access social media. According to the article Clive Thompson On The New Literacy written by Clive Thompson, “young people today write far more than any generation before them” due to “life writing” a result of social media, such as “Twitter”. This is crucial to consider because of the “14,672 student writing samples” Thompson collected from her students, “38 percent” of them “took place out of the classroom”.
World War II was the most destructive conflict in the history of world. It was found to be one of the worst war ever. Unlike the Soviet Union, the fighting in World War II itself never reached mainland. World War II had an effect on so much people that this really never happened before. It also affected wealthy professionals and poor sharecroppers regardless.
“The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact.” However this scientific fact is one of the most contested issues in science, and a recent study found that, currently, 70% of North Americans do not believe in or choose to ignore the theory of evolution. This is not as astonishing a statistic as one might think, since the topic of evolution has been ignored by many people for centuries, since Darwin published his theories in 1859. One of the primary reasons is religion.
