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      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeSep 1st 2009 edited
     

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/09/a-new-literacy.html

    I found this article and the referenced study very interesting, and it captured a new angle on the “technology and literacy” debate- how has writing changed, not just reading? I really do have to agree with the study’s conclusion that technology has increased writing, because so often now we communicate through text, not through spoken words.

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    I liked it. It’s shorter than most articles that have been linked to.

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    Is guilty of posting long articles

    Oops.

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    I think the increase in writing is a good thing, but at the cost of personal interaction… my sister has facebook and she uses it to communicate with all the people she’s just seen at school all day.

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      CommentAuthorEmil 1.4021
    • CommentTimeSep 29th 2009 edited
     
    I found the last part about spellcheck to be quite amusing.... But I do agree. Most kids switch freely between textmessaging, blog posting and grammatically correct essays. I bet it's sort of like being multilingual, but in writing.

    And besides, spellcheck can really mess up if used sloppily, so you usually have to proofread properly all the same.

    @Steph - It does, yes, but it also gives you the opportunity to look up conventions and other social events. And besides, how should we know wich kind of social interaction is the best? I have a friend that barely dares to talk to me in person, but really opens up when she writes. I don't consider one to be better than the other, but perhaps it's not so bad if it is as you say, and she sees them in school all day either way.
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    Speaking of facebook, the grammar on there has really been annoying me. I’m so tired of see “your” instead of “you’re.” I’d even prefer “u r” or “ur.” At least that’s just textspeak. And also, they never use “it’s,” only “its.”

    Sorry, I just saw and “its” post. It was annoying.

    • CommentAuthorlawzard
    • CommentTimeOct 3rd 2009
     

    Interesting article. It’s nice to see someone who isn’t flipping out about how the English language is supposedly falling to pieces. Back when telegraphs were first invented, people were worried that they would ruin the English language in much the same way that they worry about things like texting now.

    But yeah, I have to agree with Steph. It’s great that people are writing more, but it’s also making people bad at face-to-face interaction. I have a friend who is very social on the internet, but absolutely horrified of talking to people in real life. I’ve heard it referred to it as being “technolonely.”

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      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeOct 5th 2009
     

    And yet there’s some people who would never become social in real life who are able to express themselves as much as they want online. So in a sense, that’s not necessarily a bad thing- it gives those who would otherwise never socialize a chance to socialize in a different way.

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    Yes, and it gives you the opportunity to meet people you wouldn't otherwise in real life, like on this site for instance.
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    I think I confuse people in real life, because sometimes I can be really social, and other times I’m really uptight. People in my chemistry class see me as tense, but my friends know that I can be pretty outgoing too.

    And then I confuse my aquaintances because sometimes I talk so much it’s exhausting, and other times I don’t talk at all.

    • CommentAuthorlawzard
    • CommentTimeOct 6th 2009 edited
     

    Eh, I probably should have worded my point better. Interaction on the internet, through texting, ect. are not necessarily bad things. In fact, I think they’re very good things. They’re wonderful for long distance communication, meeting people you otherwise wouldn’t meet in real life, and all that. The problem is that some people spend too much time on the internet, and don’t develop their social skills. Like it or not, humans are very social creatures, and you can only live so much of your life in front of a computer screen.

    @SWQ
    Haha, I know what you mean, but I think that’s true of everyone to a certain extent. People form opinions about you based on their limited interactions with you, so their perceptions will naturally be skewed.

    • CommentAuthorlawzard
    • CommentTimeOct 6th 2009
     

    THEIR perceptions. Gah.

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    THIS. Wait, you were the one who wrote “they’re perceptions”? FAIL.

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    You can go back and edit comments, lawzard.

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    And yet there’s some people who would never become social in real life who are able to express themselves as much as they want online.

    This really is a problem. Like, if you get married and you can’t communicate with your partner properly. Like it or not, face-to-face is how we’re made.

    Plus there’s the danger of opening up too much. People say all kinds of things online that they’d never dream of saying in person because they can’t envision that there’s a real person at the end of the line. They can be too revealing, too smutty, and in some cases, too mean. There was a case where some cyber-bullies were shocked to find out that the girl they’d been ‘teasing’ in fun had actually killed herself because the bullying had gotten that bad at that end.

    Not that I’m saying that internet communication is bad (otherwise I’d never have met all you wonderful people), just that it really is no substitute.

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    No, but the anonymous-ness might be a bit different in a few years. New laws get passed regarding internet integrey (And sometimes, laws where integrity gets breached), and the first generation of people that have lived with the internet their whole lives will get older, and so the Internet won't be as much of a new element in society. Of course it's turbulent on the web, since it's a form of revolution in some ways.

    It will probably change society a whole lot, and to be straight to the point, there's not all that much you can do about it other then let people learn on their own. Like life in general, some can get taught from one person to another, other things you'll have to learn on your own (i.e. gathering experience)
    • CommentAuthorlawzard
    • CommentTimeOct 7th 2009
     

    You can go back and edit comments, lawzard.

    stands around whistling, trying not to look like a noob and failing pretty badly

    They’re actually passing internet integrity laws? I heard someone talking about them once, but I thought they were just a theoretical possibility. What kind of laws are we talking about?

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      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeOct 8th 2009
     

    How is that possible, anyway? The Internet isn’t limited to one country, so without a lot of messy cases dealing with boundaries and what country’s responsible for what, I don’t see how they could get any sort of international laws in place…

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    In Sweden there's a law that permits the government to track downloaded data and persecute the person doing it. It can result in large fines among other things, from what I've heard you can even get a few months in jail for it..... Depending on the severity of the crime.