Extended Essay 1

Being born in the first generation with the Internet it would be hard to imagine a future without it. What our parents would spends hours researching in a library we can find instantly online. Virtually all research is indexed in cyberspace, and it can easily be found with a couple key words in any search engine. This is just one of the new technologies that have changed our lives. New smart phones have made it possible to use this information wherever we are and whenever we want. At the same time we can transmit our thoughts instantly online. Facebook and Twitter are literally flooded daily with hundreds of millions of posts per day. Millions of blogs still exist today, and thousands are created daily. The point is that the limitless access to information has changed our lives in an innumerable amount of ways, but how is this limitless access to knowledge changing the way we think and act? Even more basic, how is this age of the Internet changing the way we read and write? This is not something that can simply exist without changing our fundamental ways of life. Now, I am not sure how are writing will change, and it could be for better or worse. I believe the point here is that the way we read and write is changing, and it will continue to change throughout this ever-changing world of technology.

            A perfect example of technology changing how we write is a new writing medium that has only become popular in the last 10-13 year. I am speaking of blogging. Writing used to only be a sort of formal endeavor. Professionals wrote books or in the newspaper. They are given limited space, an audience they have to appeal to, and an editor they have to please so their work can get printed. It is a pretty large process to get an article in the paper. Then blogging emerged, and boy was it successful! Today there are millions of blogs that are updated regularly, and more are created each day. Now what is the difference between a blog and a news article? Well first is that you do not need a team of people to maintain a blog. It is easy to create and maintain with just one person. Also, there are no editors in the process. There is no trying to please your editor because you are your own editor. You decide what to write, how much to write, and who to write to. Lastly, it is instant. Andrew Sullivan describes a blog as a, “spontaneous expression of instant thought.” By comparison news articles are written in response to an event. The facts are compiled and checked, and the story is printed a day later. A blog can be written as an event is happening! There are no facts that need to be checked; anything you write can just be speculation and opinion. You can even write lies, but that probably would not get you many followers. The point is there are no hoops to jump through. You can just write, and your followers will listen. That is how blogging has changed writing; by being able to report on anything you want instantly and have people listen. Although, blogging is just a new way to write. Let us examine a new technology that has influenced all writing.

            Google gives everyone access to any information they want at anytime they want. One could spend a lifetime looking up things on Google and still barely scratch the surface of the amount of information it has logged. Even so, we have to look at how this limitless source of information is affecting how we read and write. For starters, most things that are read are online, and reading something made with paper is becoming somewhat of a novelty. People always tell me, “I just enjoy the feel of paper compared to holding a tablet.” I say that they are holding on to the vintageness of books, and I predict that in 10-20 years everything will be done through a tablet or some other new piece of technology. How does this affect us? For one I think poor eyesight will become a standard diagnosis among pre-teens and up. Also, without the tangibility of a book it is easier to find yourself skimming to read everything that you want. That leads to my next point is that Google is changing how we read and retain information. Nicholas Carr talks amount how the effects of instantly accessible information on how the mind acquires and processes information. He states that Google has caused people to loose the ability to absorb large amounts of information. Bruce Friedman at the University of Michigan states that, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb longish articles on the web or in print”. Carr also uses studies that have proven that over the last five years people rarely stay on one page for very long, and even if they save a page the odds are that he or she will never look at the page again. Chris Hedges goes even farther to say that America is illiterate. Although, he is extremely biased, he uses many facts to support his argument. Something that was very compelling was that he examined the vocabulary used in presidential elections in the last 150 years. During the debates between Lincoln and Douglass the vocabulary was at an 11^th-12^th grade level. During the JFK and Nixon debates they were speaking at an 8^th-9^th grade level. Lastly, in the debates between Bush and Gore they were speaking at a 5^th-6^th grade level. Now, I do not believe he is taking the invention of the television into account. Also, the fact that most of the voters in Lincoln’s time were wealthy and white should be taken into account. I just believe candidates would rather appeal to the lowest education class so everyone can understand rather than the opposite. I do believe that Google will change how we think and process information. For better or worse I do not know. Just as we could not predicted the effects of the printing press, we will just have to wait to see how humans grow and adapt to instant access to limitless information.

            As far as writing goes society today is writing more today that it ever has in the history of time. That may seem unreal until you realize what I am referring to. I am talking about texting and social network. Everyday millions of statuses are updated, I am sure you sent a text to someone while reading this essay. The point is we are writing more than we ever have, although we are not writing in the traditional sense. We are writing thoughts and experiences that happen in our lives. Our status and texts are personal, and there is usually some emotion linked to it. Lundsford defines literacy as simply being able to read and write, and she states that literacy is on the rise among youth today. With texting, email, and social networking we would simply not function as well in modern society. It is necessary to read and write because it is a part of our daily lives in the most personal way possible. Some might say that this does not change how we write; it merely changes where we are writing instead. I say that is false. Our writing styles are not coming from famous authors as it did with past generations. They are coming from our peers. Most of what we read are short notifications of someone’s life. That is what we read and write about. I can say I am horrible at 3^rd person essays or research papers. The reason is that I just cannot grasp the idea of not including my opinion in what I am writing. At the same time I cannot include that same amount of passion in research papers. It is how I was taught to write, and it is the way I will continue to write the majority of my “works”.

            I believe the topic of literacy is how we define it. Sylvia Scribner believes that literacy is defined by the purposes of literacy. The function of literacy could be to attain power, adapt to society, or acquiring grace. Regardless I believe that is too complex of a definition. Literacy is reading and writing. That is how I see it, and by that standard I believe our society is doing pretty well in the face of technology. Here is the truth, technology has always greatly influenced our minds worked. When everyone was able to acquire printed books people thought there would be anarchy, but there was not. We progressed as a society. We adapted to the change, and we became better because of it. I do not know how society will change from modern technology. No one does, but based on the past I am remaining hopeful that it will only push us forward as a civilization.