Ben Fuerst
Eric Leake
Writ 1022
Monday, January
30th
Ever since I started my first blog
post I realized that my generation is intertwined with technology. There is no
way around it, students and teens may not be the bloggers or authors, however, we
are the audience of the bloggers. The audience of my particular article is to
both students in college taking similar courses, as well as anyone interested
in such topics about the Internet.
In Stefanie Olsen’s article “Intelligence
In the Internet Age” she quotes Doug Engelbart, a pioneer in computers and the
Internet. He once said, "The key thing about all the world's big problems
is that they have to be dealt with collectively, if we don't get collectively
smarter, we're doomed." The entirety of the article is Stefanie discussing
the benefits of the Internet, and how it is valuable to people as a whole
rather than an undesirable invention. People make the Internet out to be this
living entity draining the knowledge from individuals and bringing about
negative literary habits. I am writing this to show my point of view regarding
the upside to the Internet.
Furthermore, in the article Stefanie
uses anecdotes to relate that intelligence involves memory, and that humans
have vastly expanded their memory with use of smart technology via Internet.
Dictionary.com deems that Intelligence is, “ones capacity
for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity;
aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.” Therefore,
with the introduction of the Internet we have exponentially expanded people’s
abilities to become more intelligent. While there are many who doubt people’s
intelligence because of low SAT, ACT and other IQ tests, those do not
necessarily prove general intelligence. Perfect examples of why the Internet is
increasing our “memory” is that you may forget people’s address, directions and
how to get there. But with the Internet you receive all of this information
allowing for your brain to retain more valuable information that may not be
found on the Internet. It is almost
impossible that the Internet is an invaluable tool with which we store nearly
every iota of the world’s valuable information now. If you agree with that
statement than it is hard to ignore the truth that with an expanded form of
memory we too as humans expand our overall capacity for intelligence.
Moreover, an even more heated debate between pro and anti
Internet users is the question of overall literacy. People question whether or not the general
literacy of my generation is increasing or decreasing due to the Internet. In
Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he writes, “Immersing
myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy…. I feel as if I’m always
dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come
naturally has become a struggle.” He goes on to site various other blogger/authors
and their current struggle with focusing on reading lengthy novels. To me this
accusation that the Internet is the wrongdoer is ludicrous. Carr claimed that
Google is making us stupid, because it is reducing our attention span. Did he
ever think of the counter argument that his fluid intelligence is decreasing
due to a lack of stimulation as his age increased. There are further arguments
that because he is now constantly blogging, he is doing less reading. You cannot base your reasoning solely off of
one’s own opinion without backing it up. Simply because he and other bloggers get
distracted while reading, they cannot say everyone else’s literary skills are
impacted by the Internet. Carr claims that the Internet is “rewiring” himself
as well as us, initially claiming that it is a negative, only eventually does
he say, “Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little
consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual
ethic remains obscure.” This argument is contradictory to his entire article.
Furthermore, the Internet is neither bad nor good. It is a tool, and like many
tools, it is both helpful and destructive. However, the Internet is not making
us dumber, generally it is enhancing our literacy. It adds to our traditional
writing and reading methods as well as providing newer methods, making us
generally more intelligent.
Additionally,
the claim that the Internet is a crutch adding to the illiteracy in America is
not only one of the boldest claims ever, it is possibly the most thoughtless
one as well. In Hedges’s article “America the Illiterate” he puts forth many
left wing ideals that the general public is overwhelmed, poor, and therefore,
illiterate. Hedges’s uses “facts” and statistics without a general citation or
source. He believes that nearly 1/3 of the nation is barely or completely
illiterate. Hedges’s feels that we are worse off in this generation than ever
before. The author claims that the “illiterate rarely vote” and that those who
do, cannot make decisions off of text. Today, both older generations and mine
are more literate in a general sense than ever before. They might not be on a
higher academic level like studies would hope them to be, however, they are
well enough equipped to read a text, blog, or a status on Facebook, unlike in
the past where they might not be able to read period. He goes on later to
attack the public schools; the claim that the illiterate of the United States
can find blame in the schools and faculty is asinine. Grant it, not all
teachers are outstanding or truly believe in the mission of bettering the
students, the blame falls to the parents and more importantly the work ethic of
the children. Additionally, Hedges’s goes on to quote the speaking capacity of
past presidential candidates versus current ones. His belief is that we as
Americans are truly diminishing in our capacity to read, write, and speak.
However, this is yet another flawed argument on his part. Just because Abraham
Lincoln may be scored higher than Ronal Reagan or George Bush Sr. it doesn’t
mean that they are less intelligent. It could be quite the opposite. Maybe they
were scored higher than modern men, simply because they were more intelligent
than nearly everyone at the time, where as now our candidates are on the same
level as many others. Moreover, as a society were are currently placing less
value on traditional writing which is true. However, we are not putting any
less emphasis on reading and writing than before. A perfect example of this is
that we are evolving, for instance taking classes that focus on blog writing
over a traditional five-paragraph essay. On that note, the idea that writing is
evolving is a very valid belief.
In
Clive Thompson’s article he goes on to describe the idea that Writing, as we
know it as well as literacy is evolving. All living things evolve over time.
Reading and writing are both living things, they are a collective unconscious
of our ideas, thoughts, and experiences formed into concise forms. Therefore,
why can these methods that we use to express ourselves and formulate ideas not
evolve along with us. Thompson follows Andrea Lunsford a Stanford professor’s
study. In the study Lunsford samples 14,672 pieces of writing like texts,
blogs, and academic essays. With these samples she concluded, “"I think
we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen
since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't
killing our ability to write. It's reviving it.” While authors like Carr and
Hedges’s would disagree with these findings, it is hard to argue with a
professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford that our methods of writing and
reading are changing, yet Lunsford seems to believe the change is a positive
one like I have been arguing for. Sending someone a letter was almost normal
about 15 years ago. Then widespread use of cellphones, followed by emails, and
texts ended the need for such passé forms of communication. We have reached a
new age where facebook, twitter, and texting have become the mainstream form of
communicating with others. Therefore, the idea that our literacy methods are
evolving is not so crazy.
In
conclusion, I believe that our literacy practices have been revolutionized by
the introduction of new means of writing via the Internet. There are too many
positives to list, and very few negatives to me. The positives are things like
easy access to all sorts of readings with which we can better ourselves, both
via literacy overall and a way to expand our knowledge of nearly everything.
With the whole world opened up to us we are becoming more intelligent in mass,
previously you only knew what was around you in your own “world.” The negatives
to some are reduced attention span, or a lack of interest in classical reading.
However, you cannot generalize to everyone what a few contradictory bloggers
write. They claim that Google is bad and that the Internet is ruining books,
yet they themselves are writing blogs for a job. Aristotle once said, “Change
in all things is sweet.” It is hard to argue with the sound logic of the great
Aristotle, even more so when change comes naturally to the human race.
Works Cited
· Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The
Atlantic. July-Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Jan. 2012.
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/>.
·
Famous
Quotes at BrainyQuote.
Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.brainyquote.com/>.
·
Hedges, Chris.
"America the Illiterate." Truthdig. 10 Nov. 2008. Web. 29
Jan. 2012. <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/>.
·
Thompson,
Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." Wired.com. Web.
30 Jan. 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson>
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