Extended Essay Draft One

Today’s society is geared toward “Going Green.” Slogans like “reduce, reuse, recycle” are plastered throughout society like wallpaper. We are inundated with ways to help the environment and as if to prove Chris Hedges’ point of the way in which we believe catchy slogans more often than scholarly points, we blindly follow them. The slogans we see daily have a more profound effect on our lives than they were ever intended. I propose that the slogans and catch phrases of the Green Revolution, though not completely to credit, play an important role in the kind of readers and writers we are.

Reduce: The internet allows us to reduce the amount of work it takes to find the information we seek. It also allows us to reduce the sheer volume of material with which we are presented by simply making our search more specific. It even allows us to reduce our impact on the environment by not driving to a library or having to make copies, even though often times we choose to do the latter anyway.

Reuse: While it is thought of as possible to go back to a library and recheck a book at any time, in reality there is a risk of the book being checked out by someone else. From the internet, we can save articles directly to our computer and know that, unless our computer crashes, the information will remain until we delete it.

Recycle: The internet has given us a place to share our ideas with others. We can instantaneously learn of breaking news from across the world, or comment on an article written by our favorite hometown columnist. It allows us to quote the work of others in our own writing and reuse the ideas of others.

A vast portion of reading done in college is assigned through internet resources. Articles are sometimes converted directly from physical sources to digital sources and put at our fingertips. We then have the choice to print these sources out, or read them directly from the screen. This begs the question: are those who prefer to print articles someone smarter than those who don’t?

As for the claim that Google is making us stupid, this can be attributed to a difference in generations and let’s face it: generation gaps are always going to exist. These gaps inadvertently instill a sense of superiority in each generation between which the gap exists. Perhaps the most classic example of a generation gap is laziness. Each age group is referred to as lazy by the one preceding it and almost like a rite of passage, that generation grows up to call the one after it lazy. The current generation uses the internet far more than any one past.

Writers like Chris Hedges have a rather jaded opinion on the effect of the internet. He refers to those of us who use the internet as our main way of learning parasites. He states that most internet writers do not write first hand, but use the works of others to further their agendas. His opinion is partially well rooted because many bloggers do not contribute anything valuable to the literary world except their opinions. However, I believe there are a vast number of internet writers who do contribute important works. His misconception can simply come from seeing the sheer number of people who write in any shape or form on the internet. Anyone can write online, and a lot of people do because of its ease. Not many are actually talented at it.

Clive Thompson’s attitude on the internet is like day to Chris Hedges’ night. Thompson believes that society has been affected by technology in a very positive way. He states “Before the internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment.[ Thompson, p1]” This shows his positive focus on the fact that we write more today than we ever have in precious generations. Although it sounds great that we are writing a lot, I question the real value of the writing which we do. Facebook chats and Twitter updates rarely if ever teach us anything of value. They just give us insight to what our friends are feeling or doing or even the latest rumors.

Nicholas Carr’s article Is Google Making Us Stupid? seems to leave his question unanswered. Carr makes very valid points that would seem to prove both views of the matter. What I truly understand after reading his article is that the way we learn has changed. This change can be viewed from many vantage points and seen as good or bad. I believe that, in the case of effects of the internet, no conclusion can be drawn. I simply believe that as much good has come from the internet as bad and that the ways in which we seek information have changed. We may prefer a more straight forward answer to our questions but that does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that we are less patient or intelligent. It simply illustrates that we are more eager to draw from what we read. Because of the internet, the abundance of information available is made blatantly apparent. This has unintentionally rewired our thought processes to require constant discovery of new information.

When looking to become versed in a specific topic, even those who choose to use books usually will not choose to read the whole book. They seek the chapter or page that pertains to the subject they are researching and disregard the rest. The internet is a much more efficient way to find an answer without being forced to wade through the topics that aren’t pertinent. On the other hand, if the internet reader is looking to research a more general topic, he is likely to read just as much information if not more than the book reader. This can be attributed to the abundance of sources available through the internet.

Writers like Sylvia Scribner seem to go along with the opinion that though our ways are changing; the literary world is not coming to an end. Her views make writing seem like is a gas: it adapts to the form of whatever contains it. There is not a single, solid way to write and we have yet to discover the boundaries of literacy and probably never will. Scribner’s second way of viewing literacy is from the power perspective. What do we seek to attain from our writing? Our goals may differ from the goals of others. Just as what we have written may seem powerless to some, it may be the most powerful piece another person has ever read. In her third metaphor, Scribner states “literateness has come to be considered synonymous with being ‘cultured’… [in the] sciences, arts, and humanities. [p13]” This quote illustrates that writing is for everyone, not just those who can change lives or paint pictures with what they write.

I have always thought of myself as a fairly talented writer as well as a capable reader. This includes both research based topics, such as works that require me to go online or even go to the library, as well as original creative writing. My reading and writing skills are vastly based upon the internet. I, like many, have become very adept at finding any information I desire on Google. This allows me to quickly sort through the millions of articles to find information on the specific topic I am writing about. While reading the various sources throughout this unit, I was constantly reminded of the phrase “Work smart, not hard.” I previously viewed this phrase as another way to imply laziness; however, it truly means being efficient, which is far from laziness. In a library, the process of finding pertinent information is much more archaic. If I decide to look up a book on topic, I have to find it in the library and then search through the book to find my information. It is a substantial waste of time if I discover a book in the library is not pertinent to my topic, whereas on the internet, I have wasted only mere seconds. Often times when I write, I listen to music. I also like to take breaks to gather my thoughts. In a library, silence is required and it is encouraged to stay on task.

Reading and writing are just like anything else. You receive as much good from it as you put into it. If we seek to be closed minded and read only things that agree with our opinions, the internet creates the perfect place for that. However, it also creates an atmosphere of super-learning. It presents information on any topic in many forms so that it may be accessed by all. It eliminated barriers of time and allows us to instantaneously access a whole new world of information. If we seek to be truly educated, we will seek knowledge no matter what the cost. It matters not how this information is ascertained, as long as the care has been taken to properly analyze and validate its contents. Those who desire understanding will read from magazines, books in the library, articles online, and blogs until their thirst for knowledge has been quenched.

Prior to the cyber-generation in which we are living, writing was often personal and remained between the parties involved. With the availability of Facebook and blog sites, people have begun taking their opinions public.

Literacy Post Practice

Here is an article on literacy. It pertains to the debate on what material children should be reading. It inadvertently proves that we still practice reading, even at a young age.

I came, I blogged, I conquered.

For the past seven blog posts, I have been responding to the writing of others. This has allowed me to learn a lot of others’ opinions on the internet. In the process of learning, I have also learned a lot. Being able to see what kind of writing is good, and what kind is bad has really helped me. In a typical high school English class, I had less than ten true papers that were graded and commented throughout the year. This is my ninth in one month. I feel like the 250 word minimum establishes a good sample of our writing upon which our skills can be criticized.

The short nature of these writings also has a downside. It is very easy to get off target and one hundred words on an unrelated topic ruins the whole point of your writing. It is very surprising to me that, even though writing every other day seemed to be a burden at first, it has turned into an enjoyable project. Once the words start flowing onto the computer and the ideas in my mind start connecting, the paper basically writes itself. I attribute this to the consistent basis upon which we write.

My internet habits due to this unit have not changed too drastically. The only thing I am doing differently is focusing on my reading more as the amount of it increases. The statement that we skim what we read because we are used to instant gratification lit a fire under me. It made me want to prove the article wrong and therefore I am bettering my reading and writing habits. I also have the intention of reading more news and recent event websites or actual texts now. I am finding that I am not “in the know” near as much as the people I am surrounded by. This of course could just be some degree of hypercriticism but I am under the impression that news does the mind some good.

Though this section was focused almost completely on responding to others works and learning to “rewrite”, I feel as though my process of reading and writing has been completely revamped. Prior to this section, I viewed reading and writing as two separate and completely different processes. Now, I view them as interrelated ideas that cannot survive without one another. When writing, I now think about how different ways of writing are interpreted when read and adjust my writing to suit my purpose. Likewise, when I read, I think about what I would have written or how I would summarize the reading objectively.

The most important thing I learned from this section is that I actually do have an opinion on the effects of the internet on society. My opinion is now very well informed and I have several articles to prove my point. Society has a natural process of change. This change can be viewed from many vantage points and seen as good or bad. In the case of effects of the internet, I believe that no conclusion can be drawn. I simply believe that as much good has come from the internet as bad and that the ways in which we seek information have changed.

Hedges vs Thompson

According to Chris Hedges, newspapers are on a fast decent. He says “We are under the happy illusion that we can transfer news-gathering to the internet.[p1]” This, to me, opens a new way of thought that I have never considered. What if the internet is just making us lazy? All the articles we have read in this class support this view. Yes, our way of thinking may be changing, and the speaking level of our presidents may be on a slippery slope, but what if it’s not related to our level of intelligence at all?

Hedges’ use of the word ‘parasite’ is quite shocking, but in reality, this is what we are. We go a website, news websites in particular, with no intention of adding information to it or even commenting on it. We rarely if ever try to check the source and we take what we read as fact just because the readership of the news company is in the millions. Hedges’ brings up an interesting statistic (even though I don’t know what his source is) that states, basically, a reader of an actual newspaper spends seven-fold the amount of time reading it that does a reader of an online news source.

The view of Clive Thompson and his sources is remarkably different from that of the aforementioned. Thompson goes into more detail about the statement that we write more today than previous generations ever have. “Before the internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment.[p1]” Although this sounds great that we are writing a lot, I question the real value of the writing which we do. Facebook chats and Twitter updates rarely if ever teach us anything of value. They just give us insight to what our friends are feeling or doing or even the latest rumor.

There are clearly two views on which way the net is pushing our media. It is very hard for me to draw a conclusion because both of these articles give very convincing arguments that seem believable (and not sensationalist). If forced to draw a conclusion, I would state that the internet is, as I’ve said, changing the way we read and write. But unfortunately, it is also making us lazy.

America the ILL?

Hedges opens his argument by stating that “we live in two different Americas” –one based on print (minority) and one based on non-reality, or images. I thought that this was a very ill-advised way to start his article. This sensationalist statement is purely black and white with no room left for gray. In his opinion, we must live in one or the other with an ‘unbridgeable’ gap between each educational process.

I find it very troubling, and very believable, that politicians prey on the weakness of the illiterate to gain a vote. “Campaigns that succeed… manipulate fickle moods, emotions, and impulses.[1]” This to me is a very hard pill to swallow because of the words manipulate and campaigns used together. Hedges goes on to state that after a campaign, the previously empowered, illiterate, voting citizen goes back to a life in which he or she has no way of truly understanding what is going on around them. This is very disturbing because it raises the question: What do we truly know about our own lives?

Much like Carr, Hedges believes that today’s society hungers for instant gratification and constant stimulus. However, the similarities end there. Carr used the phrases to enhance the point that our way of thinking is changing, whereas, Hedges used it to drive home his point that maybe Google truly is making us stupid.

The article gave several interesting theories about the progression, or rather, recession of our reading and speaking abilities. The comparison of debate transcripts from modern debates versus previous debates was shocking and raised yet another question: No matter what political party we put our trust in, who are we electing to make the decisions of our country? Hedges drove his point home when he said “Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18^th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.[2]”

The point of this article was to prove the point that our culture is changing. Hedges accomplishes this goal in the last page with two lines: “Culture is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment. [Arendt ]” and “The core values of our society… are dying.[3]” However, he does not entertain the notion that American culture is changing, not dying. In addition, this article offers no solution to the problem and only succeeds in being a rant, which may well have been its intent.

Google vs Your Noodle

Is Google making us stupid? Think about it, really. When was the last time you wanted to know something and weren’t around a computer, so you didn’t find it out? Now on the other hand, when was the last time you wanted to know something and were around a library and you still didn’t look it up? Face it, we just don’t use libraries like we used to. Thanks to the online revolution, one can find out literally anything on the internet. Those who disagree with me will probably be screaming to themselves “That’s what I’m talking about! Without the internet, people won’t take the time to look things up!” Fortunately, the internet is something that annot be undone.

Throughout Nicholas Carr’s article, he presents an unenthusiastic opinion of the internet’s effect on us. However, early in the article he makes a statement that I could not get past. “My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing.” So, that said, I would like to present to you that Google (and the like) and not making us stupid; rather, changing the way we think.

I find it very hard to deduce anything about whether or not Google is making us stupid from my classmate’s notes only. They show nothing of time spent reading books, or even spent looking things up in a library. I can however speak for my own internet habits. I do not feel that I am any less intelligent because of Google and the internet. I actually feel as though I am smarter because I quite literally have the world at my finger tips. I believe it would be hard to find out trivia, though basically useless, such as why a 3 Musketeers bar is named the way it is. Google has opened to everyone a world which they may have previously been unaware.

Harris vs Sullivan

Ahh, procrastination…

To compare and contrast two subjects, or in this case two authors, one usually makes a list of defining characteristics. However, while reading what Harris had to say about writing, I realized that Harris and Sullivan write in two extremely different situations and therefore are not that easily compared. This is especially true of the comparison of Harris, who writes more in the traditional view, and Sullivan, who may be described as progressive.

Harris’ style is all based from writing, and then, as the title of his book suggests, rewriting. This suggests a careful placement of words and editing of phrases. This is nothing like what Sullivan does in his blogging. As you may remember, Sullivan suggests a more dangerous form of writing that he compares to extreme sports. Also, the material written in blogs is read at face value, often as a source of entertainment and therefore not always thoroughly digested. In Harris’ case, the writing he speaks of will be published and he is well aware of how critical people can be on writing.

The major similarities were a lot harder to find. One particular example, in reference to an aforementioned phrase Harris says “The strength of this passage hinges on the word moreover…” This statement goes to show that the writing Harris does relies a lot on emotion, just like blogging. Blogging relies a lot on key words, used to catch the reader’s eyes. The purpose of using these words leads again to differences. In traditional writing like Harris does, the key words go to show reliability of text, and to make the book or article a page turner. In blogging however, those key words go to make the blog memorable.

Comparing Harris vs. Sullivan is much like comparing apples to oranges.

Me vs. You

When comparing my internet habits to those of my classmates, I noticed two very distinct things. First, people who don’t spend that much time online, me for example, visit a select few websites repeatedly. These websites seem to be a very common thread to anyone who uses the internet. E-mail and Facebook or MySpace seem to dominate the playing field. This goes to show the age in which we are; everyone is connected to each other via some type of web portal.

The second thing I noticed was that no matter what website people visited, it fell under one of three categories:

1) Education: includes reading the news, using Blackboard, and ULink

2) Entertainment: includes music, social networking, and videos

3) Life: includes shopping, banking, and stocks

Of course, the items listed under each of these categories are not the only things that can possibly be included. Each of the topics may have subtopics and even sub-subtopics, but when I thought about it, every website can basically fit beneath one of these categories.

Not all of us, however, use the internet as much for a single category as others. I noticed that I do not spend any time online looking at current events in the world. There were a few people in the class that do. Also, I rarely shop online. I noticed people logging onto eBay, iTunes, and other shopping websites, none of which I partook in. The last difference that stood out to me was how many humorous websites people visited. It made me think, in all seriousness, that I need to spend more time laughing. I hadn’t heard of very many of the humor sites people were logging onto.

Though studying other people internet habits was oddly interesting to me, the most interesting part was plainly seeing the websites that I visit. I could have told you what websites I visited prior to this exercise but I wouldn’t have been able to venture a guess as to how long I spent online or the times at which I logged onto them.

I have no life, apparently.

"The purpose of this blog is to open for examination internet literacy habits that often go unexamined." I wish I wouldnt have examined mine.

I won't go into it much, but this blog really makes me laugh because it proves in black and white that I have no life and need to spend way less time on Facebook.

Wednesday, September 2nd

8:30 AM logged onto Facebook, chatted with some random people and nothing that really matters. I didn't take the time to write down what it was because it was way before my happy time.

8:40 AM logged onto ULink, read email. I am amazed that people still walk through dark allies alone and even more amazed the the University publishes every little thing that happens.

10:15 AM Facebooked, again. No one wanted to talk to me at this time of day, I guess they were all in class. My mood at this point is fairly good because I feel like I have a fairly respectable portion of my day under my belt.

10:20 AM checked for blackboard for updates (none present)

2:30- 2:50 PM Facebooked some more (I obviously have no life)

5:45 PM YouTube for funny videos. It is really odd what kind of videos get over a million views. Then again, I also had to find them to watch them.

9:00- 9:45 PM Facebook chatted. This is kind of like my night time ritual. Almost as soon as I'm done on facebook, I go to sleep... usually.

Thursday, September 3rd

8:45 AM Facebooked, no one I wanted to talk to was on this morning. I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

8:50 AM Checked my ULink for email and blog for comments. ULink was boring as usual and I have 16 followers on my blog. Even though they have to follow my blog for a grade, it's still exciting to me.

3:00- 3:25 PM Checked Facebook, chatted with some friends about nothing important.

4:00- 4:50 PM Skyped with my brother. He is in Greece and it makes me happy to talk to him evey chance I can.... I miss him.

6:30- 6:50PM Facebook and checked ULink. As usual, no one had anything interesting to say.

9:45- 10:15 PM- Facebook. This was just my normal night time ritual.

Thank you, Mr Sullivan

Since the first ever blog site opened, there has been an ongoing and sometimes intense argument about whether or not blogging is truly writing. As most arguments go, the people that say the blogging is indeed writing are the ones that are doing the blogging. Those who say it is not, are the ones who either dislike blogs or are strictly traditional writers.

The perspective of Andrew Sullivan is highly valued when considering this argument because he is both a longtime blogger, and an even longer time traditional writer. In his article “Why I Blog”, he mentions that one thing he is fond of is how quickly a blog can be posted. This rapidity gives him an excitement which normal writing cannot do. “For bloggers,” Sullivan says “the deadline is always now.” The excitement that Sullivan describes also seems to come from the dangerous aspect of blogging. Sullivan insists that bloggers must be careful to not make blog posts in fits of rage or in very personally emotional moments. He is not suggesting, however, limiting their posts by excluding emotion. In fact, he says in referring to his blogging during the September 11^th attacks that “There is a vividness to [the] immediacy [of blogging] that cannot be rivaled by print.

Many people in my English 105 class have mentioned how freeing blog form is and how there is little accountability for what is written. However, Sullivan states blogging holds you “more accountable, not less”. This is because people who are reading blogs are not afraid to be rude when they comment on your writing. There is no face to face meeting with an editor; the writing comes straight from the authors mind and fingertips to the eyes of a reader, or often times harsh critic. Traditional writing has always separated itself from scrutiny by using the aforementioned editors and blogging is a way to test your true, unrehearsed writing ability by fire.

Another thing Sullivan mentions that is great about blogging is the ability to check the validity of information instantaneously. When writing a book or news article, writers often quote their sources. However, very few people actually take the time to check the source, even if they do not believe the writer. In blogging, the author has the ability to input hyperlinks that have their source information on them so that critics and fans alike can validate the material.

Throughout the whole article, Sullivan makes comparisons between tradition writing and blogging. The theme of these differences really boils down to what type of personality you have. If you like to write slowly and be cautious about what you write by having someone check it for you, blogging is probably not your forte. However, if you like to step outside of the box and take risks that are sometimes scary, but always exciting, then give blogging a try!