Dina Grossman
1/25/2013
Unit 1 essay
Four
score and seven years ago, just kidding, no one talks like that anymore. How
much quicker is it just to say 87 years ago?
The fact of the matter is no one talks that way and we can’t measure
literacy based on how we spoke many years ago. The definition of literate is:
1) “educated, cultured.” 2) “Having knowledge or competence.” according to
Merriam Webster. Competence is “a
sufficiency of means for the necessities and conveniences of life.” People from 1904 would have just as much
trouble using the conveniences of life that we have today as people born in
1994 would have in 1904. While those from the early 1900’s wouldn’t know how to
use a computer, I don’t know how to use a typewriter. Now, instead of having to
wait for a newspaper to be dropped off at our house by a horse-drawn-carriage
or kid on a bicycle, we can get instant notifications on our phones. Once we
get these notifications we don’t need to read through 20 pages to find out
what’s going on, we have access to instant headlines. Information is
instantaneous now 24 hours a day, (though sometimes in an effort to be in front
of a story, the facts are a little off, the gist is there). If I want to tell my parents where I am, one
quick text beats having a ten-minute phone conversation. In these quicker conversations there’s less
fluff; there is just the distillation of what is most essential of what needs
to be conveyed. Through social network interactions, people are becoming more
literacy efficient because of their constant involvement with reading and
writing.
Forty
million views in four days would have been impossible before social media. But,
with social media this is exactly what happened with the Kony 2012 video. A
twitter post consists of a maximum of 140 characters. In a matter of days,
Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, and more major
modern day public figures had posted about him in their tweets and in days
millions and millions of people knew exactly who Joseph Kony was. 9.45 million people tweeted about him! With
just 140 characters people were able to get such an emotional and widespread
response. Are we illiterate because our attention span has shrunk to 140
characters? I would say the complete opposite. Literacy is about being educated
and I don’t think anyone can argue that this way for people getting educated
this fast is a negative thing. The New York Times is a highly respected
newspaper in the United States. If you look at the cover of the New York Times
from Tuesday April 16, 1912, it is all about the titanic sinking. The only
thing on the cover is about the Titanic. Now compare this to the cover of the
New York Times on September 12th, the day after one of the most
horrible things that has happened to this country. The whole cover is about
September 11th, but it includes nine different articles about what
happened that day. The headline reads
“U.S. ATTACKED HIJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF
TERROR”. With reading nothing more than
just this, I can tell you what happened compared to the Titanic article which
headlines "TITANIC SINKS FOUR HOURS AFTER HITTING ICEBERG; 866 RESCUED BY
CARPATHIA, PROBABLY 1250 PERISH; ISMAY SAFE, MRS. ASTOR MAYBE, NOTED NAMES
MISSING.” While this gives you the gist with just reading the headlines it’s
not as straight forward, to the point. It is easy to get kind of lost in all
the words of it, which then takes away from the seriousness. Getting lost in
the words doesn’t just happen in headlines. Shakespeare is known to be one of
the greatest authors of all time, however, using the definition of competence
from earlier, he wouldn’t get through the modern day necessities and
conveniences of life without struggling because his speech is simply dated and
cumbersome to use. People today demand communication, especially mass
communication to be simple, short and easy to understand.
Chris Hedges, a Journalist who focuses on politics, wrote a very
negative article about the United States becoming illiterate. In it he states, “This is why serious film
and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and
books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the
most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey
Mouse.” He puts this in such a negative
context whereas in reality this may not be a bad thing. Mickey Mouse is popular
among younger people. People might have
been reading Voltaire in the 18th century but it was only for those
that were educated and had the time as they also lived a lot shorter and didn’t
have time to enjoy childhood. Now that we live longer and are able to be
teenagers, and are expected to spend more time in school learning an ever
growing amount of information to then be given back on tests, we find we need
to have time to appreciate the little things, and not spend too much time
worrying about in depth literature. Not only did the news about 9/11 spread
fast with people being able to blog about it and post their real feelings as it
happened in real time, as information is updated, the story is able to become
accurate quickly and allows people to share their reactions with each other
making. This makes it a communal event and not one that happens somewhere else
to someone unknown and tell peoples exact emotions as they happened. No need
for editors to try to make it fit the press and its deadlines. People were able
to voice their opinions as it happened. With this were able to look back at
9/11 twelve years later and still get the same emotional response. Andrew
Sullivan, a blogger and journalist, wrote an article about why he chooses to
blog. He blogged during 9/11 and in his
article writes, “I can look back and see not just how I responded to the event,
but how I responded to it at 3:47 that afternoon. And again at 9:46 that night.
There is a vividness to this immediacy that cannot be rivaled by print.” The
true value of the emotions of blogs and
instant news is that it’s not sugar coated. You don’t have time to think of the
best way to word it. It’s how you feel in that moment. And those real thoughts
are irreplaceable.
Not
only has the way we read things changed, we’ve also changed the way we write.
There’s nothing more terrifying then checking my cell phone and seeing 5 missed
calls from my parents. Maybe I’m at a friends and I left my phone in the car,
maybe I lied about where I’m going, maybe I’m in a movie and can’t talk.
Whatever the case may be, one quick text of “hey I’m okay, don’t worry” and
it’s okay. I’ve been in a fair share of car accidents and without having a cell
phone I wouldn’t have been able to call for help. I know it is really
comforting for my parents knowing that I’m a young drive that I have a cell
phone and they can reach me should they need me. In previous decades it’s was a safer place
for kids to run around outside and play. But, the sad truth is, the world is
getting more dangerous. Between stories about and the fear of kidnappings,
shootings, rape stories, etc. there is plenty to make parents remain hyper
vigilant and worried. I read this article called, The Razorblade In the Apple,
which was about Halloween Sadism. The summary of the article is; Halloween
sadism isn’t a real thing. It’s an urban legend built upon our biggest fears,
which is why we believe in it. Three of
our biggest fears are; mistrust of others, fear of crime, and threats to
children. All three of these fears are put to ease with the use of cell phones.
Parents are able to keep in constant contact with their children; some phones
can even have trackers put in them.
While there is a downside to us being constantly plugged in to these
social networks I think the pros outweigh the cons. All this goes to show that
just because we are writing more shorthand, we’re not becoming less literate.
We’re more used to reading short headlines so we’re able to write short
headlines. We’re able to get our points across faster and easier. This helps a
lot with keeping long distance friends. I go to college out of state and it’s
really nice being able to get a quick “Hope you’re doing well” text from my
parents. With all these constant distractions in our lives of news
notifications, texts, and worrying about what our next Facebook status will
say, we’re constantly writing and thinking which, if anything, is a good thing. It
does not mean we have lost the ability to write in a more formal manner when
needed, but demonstrates our ability to condense our thoughts and be concise in
our language and communications when needed.
“In the thousands of pieces of student writing we examined,” Andrea
Lunsford, an English professor at Stanford University, writes about her study
of college writers, “we see students moving with relative ease across levels of
style (from the most informal to the most formal)…and they make the adjustments
necessary to address them effectively.” Even though we are used to writing
short hand, slang ridden messages, according to Lunsfords study of college
students, we’re able to adjusting our writing to write formal essays and such.
With
all this being said, everything is so much more to the point. We don’t need to
read through pages and pages of information to find what we’re looking for. As
a student, I’ve had to write a decent amount of research papers and they can be
a pain! With the help of Google, I can type in exactly what I’m looking for and
instantly I have access to thousands or millions of articles on my topic. I can
even narrow down those searches to make it that much easier. Decades ago I
would have had to go to the library or maybe more than one library and find the
books I need, search through those books, hope when I do find the volumes which
might contain the information I am looking for they have what I’m looking for,
pulling bits of information from various sources in a random manner that I may
or may not be able to go back to at a later date and then write down the book
information, go back and type it up. This is so much more of a tedious and time
consuming process then it need be in this day of information in the palm of
your hand, literally. of a hassle. Not only is this easily accessible
information beneficial for me in my research, it helps us all stay connected to
the rest of the world and the latest information. Suppressed countries, like North Korea where
they are being run by a dictatorship, are in no way better off than free
countries like the United States where we can learn almost everything about
anything. Again with the Kony 2012
campaign, we were able to learn all about things going on in parts of Central
Africa over night because of this quickly spread global information. All this
information enhances our culture, literacy, and knowledge. Therefore we’re
becoming more educated readers and writers. With all this freedom to
information we can get both sides of a story and make our own educated personal
opinions.
While
it’s true that all this instant access can make some lazy, there is so much
information readily available that we have the ability in becoming more aware
citizens. Literacy being defined by
education and culture would show that we’re actually becoming more literate.
We’re more globally educated and have access to so much culture whether it’s
googling new fashion trends or looking up old recipes or researching our family
history. All this technology is making
us more efficient in our lifestyles. We
have a question about something we just heard, or are just curious about
something just seen, we can look it up and learn more almost instantaneously,
thereby becoming more literate on that topic. Some may argue that all this
technology is bad; to them I say they need to open their eyes to the new
possibilities. The future holds so many wondrous things if we just are open
minded to all the new technologies.
Works
Cited
Bennett, Gillian, and Paul Smith. Contemporary legend: a folklore bibliography.
New
York: Garland, 1993. Print.
Hedges, Chris . "America the
Illiterate." Truthdig. N.p., 8
Nov. 2010. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/>.
Lincoln, Abraham, and Michael
McCurdy. The Gettysburg address.
Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1995. Print.
Lunsford, Andrea. "Our
Semi-Illterate Youth: Not So Fast." Stanford.
N.p., n.d. Web. 25
Jan. 2013.
<www.stanford.edu/group/ssw/cgi-bin/materials/OPED_Our_Semi-
Literate_Youth.pdf>.
Preston, Jennifer, and David Goodman. "How the Kony Video Went
Viral -
NYTimes.com." The
Lede Blog . The New York Times, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/how-the-kony-video-went-viral/>.
Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I Blog
." The Atlantic. N.p., n.d. Web.
25 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/>.
"TimesMachine ." Times Machine. The New York Times , n.d.
Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
<http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser>.
Webster, Noah. Webster's
new international dictionary of the English language. 2d ed. Springfield,
Mass.: Mirriam, 1950. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment