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| Texting a Friend |
Does Digital Media Make Us Bad Writers
"According to Lunsford, the writing we produce is not getting worse. Instead, it is simply adapting to the modern world" (Karp, 2010).
A few years ago I would have disagreed with this statement adamantly. However looking back on this subject now, I'd have to say it was a stagnant belief. I learned a certain set of rules regarding the English language in grade school and that was it. No one taught me in school that language is fluid with the time period or as Lunsford stated above - adaptive. As someone who is in love with the Shakespearian time period it should have occurred to me that language changes over time and just because it does so over my time period here on Earth does not make it wrong. Technology is adapting the way we think, especially when it comes to communication. As our language adapts, our writing and literacy skills will follow.
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| My Flipboard |
"As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books." (Rich, 2008).I have to be honest, just about the whole article shocked me. I'm 37 years old and not adverse to digital literacy at all. It never occurred to me that snippets of literacy online wasn't considered reading to some individuals. My prize books are Animal Farm, The Great Divorce, Shakespeare's Unabridged Works and Memoirs (1874), Jonathan Livingston Seagull, etc… I also love my collection of books on my iPad but sitting still long enough to read a whole book or a series of books is hard to do when the Internet provides a plethora of reading material. I believe discounting snippets of Internet literacy to be a stagnant belief. We are in the digital age and information literally flows from our fingertips. I currently have 7 windows open on my MacBook and every few moments I flip through a couple. I love my Flipboard. I can skip through articles fairly quickly and glancing at the snapshot I just took of my Flipboard makes me want to check out the science article in the bottom left corner. The problem today is that we don't engage teenagers in the material that they want to read. I'm a huge advocate for comic books. They are short, eye catching, and can be read on the Internet. Not only that but you can make your own at Make Beliefs Comix killing 2 birds with one stone - literacy and writing.
Web Evangelist vs Traditional Writing
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| Geoffery Fairchid |
I don't feel that digital media is destroying our children's ability to read and write. I think the problem lies in what we want our students to read and how we are approaching writing. Neither are innovative. I look at the stories my kids are reading (the same one I did, excerpts of old stories) and how they are being tested. I know for a fact that there is some sort of missing link. I don't know if it is failure to read a story and apply concepts that the pre-prepared test the teacher puts no thought into does. I've seen the oddest questions come from stories I know my child and I didn't discuss as we reviewed together.
When it comes to writing my children's teachers use a lot of worksheets to develop grammar skills. I'm not seeing an innovation in teaching. I'm not trying to bash on teaching skills in general at my children's school but there is a missing link. My children use technology at home. They use kindles to read. They use YouTube to learn how to make paper Japanese stars and swans. They use Siri's Text-to-Talk on my iPhone. They are bombarded at home with technology but not at school. There is some sort of missing link and I don't think it is the digital technology that should we should be pointing our finger at. I think we need to find new innovative ways to teach our students to read and write that will intrigue or peek their interest. We also need to start acknowledging what they are reading and writing and applying this to our teaching. OR we can acknowledge that as culture changes, writing is going to change as well. This has been noted in all the readings and the TEDtalk Video as a negative concept which eventually turns into the norm, such as Latin transcending into French (John McWhorter, n.d.).
I also want to point out that I agree heavily with John McWhorter in the TEDtalk Video, "Txting, is killing our language. JK!!!" Writing follows our language. Not vice versa.
"All communication includes the transfer of information from one person to another, and while the transfer of information is only the first step in the process of understanding a complex phenomenon, it is an important first step. Writing is a fairly static form of transfer" (Ferraro and Kathryn C. & Palmer).
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| Intimate Conversation with My Husband |
When I first began texting it was new. I was still use to writing long papers and I felt that my writing should reflect punctuations, proper grammar, etc… How long and laborious that was especially hitting the "2" button three times to type just the letter "C". It didn't take long to understand why texting required short, concise messages with abbreviated wording such as "BTW, LOL, etc…" It took an even shorter time period for those words to turn into "btw, lol, etc…" just because the shift button took more effort than what it was worth. Before I knew it, it was a part of my personal culture as well as the culture I was embedded into.
It interesting to note how the texting world is becoming fluid as it develops into its own language. Obviously it will always be rigid as facial expressions, nonverbal clues, and the human component are absent. It's not as rigid as writing can be but to add the nonverbal clues and engage the other individual texting is quickly developing ways to do this such as adding visual expressions such as "lol" or as John McWhorter explained the term "slash" as a "new information marker"which further gives us evidence to pull texting away from the category of writing and into language.
I recommend the TEDTalk series in general
Citations
Ferraro and Kathryn C. , V., & Palmer, K. C. (n.d.).Differences between oral and written
communication. Retrieved on May 25 from
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/speech/differences.htm
Karp, J. (2010, Jan 26). Does digital media make us bad writers?. Retrieved on May 23, 2014 from
http://spotlight.macfound.org/featured-stories/entry/does-digital-media-make-us-bad-writers
Rich, M. N. K. (2008, July 27). The future of reading literacy debate: Online, r u really reading?.
Retrieved on May 23, 2014 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?
pagewanted=all&_r=0
TEDTalk. (Producer). John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!! [Web Video]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s
11 comments:
The rules we learned in school I still find hard to break all the times with social media. I agree to that the texting language is still developing. I don’t have all the texting lingo down but I am learning.
I definitely don't have all the text lingo down either. For the life of me there is one that everyone types that I can't remember. I finally quit looking up.
The TEDTalk video made me think back to how my past teachers probably shook their head when they saw my teenage writing and thought to themselves, "Writing is just going downhill since I was a kid." It made me think that I should not be so egotistical when it comes to the way I learned how to write versus today's teenagers who will probably not understand the next generations bad writing habits. It seems to be a perpetual cycle. LOL! (Couldn't help myself. I had to add that.)
Have you ever seen any 'texting fails' pictures? The one that comes to my mind is:
Mom: Your Uncle Jerry died. LOL
Daughter: OMG mom why are you laughing?
Mom: I'm not, why?
Daughter: BC LOL means laughing out loud
Mom: Oh. I have some calls to make, I though "Lots of Love"
It is funny how one interprets the lingo in texts and figures out the abbreviations. I have a 17-year old and a 21 year-old and I just ask. On Twitter for example, I would see the abbreviation OMTL: and then a subject matter. I finally asked and it meant "on my time-line". Once I went back to Twitter and read tweets, it all made sense.
I think kids are more creative today in their ways of communicating and the adults are always playing catch-up!
LOL! Yes Candi - I have seen that one. I literally "laughed out loud" over that one. And I completely agree. I do feel like I am playing catch-up and sometimes the best way for me to learn is ask my nieces and nephews or my friend's kids.
I have always been on both sides of technology. Yes, it helps us in so many ways, but it also hurts us. Like you said, the texting can come into our writing. We can only hope that our students can get past the texting lingo when writing or typing a paper or whatever the task is at hand.
Research on the effects of texting on academic writing have found no adverse effects. Here is the Abstract to one such study published last year.
The growing concern about the profuse use of texting endangering the standard forms in
language prompted the present research to determine the presence or absence of SMS
features in the academic writing of the participants. Triangulation was used for data
collection i.e. questionnaires for learners and educators and samples of the learners’ English
written work were examined for SMS features. Suppliance in Obligatory Context was used
for data recording. Simple average and ratio were used for descriptive analysis of the data.
Contrary to the expectation, there were no significant evidences of these features in the
sample. It seems being proficient in standard forms, these learners are context conscious and
can switch to the appropriate register or style when writing formally .Thus the present study
has de mystified the popular belief about texting adversely affecting writing and thus
destroying Standard English. Moreover, the evidences of one punctuation mark used in place
of another indicate there can be other factors like carelessness or lack of knowledge of
students and the lack of training, feedback or emphasis by educators or the system. So the
matter of concern should be the general neglect of punctuation even out of the context of
texting.
Like you, I would have felt differently about the cliams in these articles years ago. My opinion on Digital Media and communication technolgoy has changed... for the better, I think. I think that understanding that writing in these different ways, depending on you task at the time, represents a more nuanced view of what writing is supposed to be.
Yes Jared! That is exactly what I am trying to portray. I feel that my views have changed for the better in embracing technology and the way our linguistics is changing or evolving.
Denise,
Thank you for adding the research information reguarding texting and academic writing. I wonder at what point the education system will decided to educate on texting lingo? I know it's coming. I just wander how far out.
"As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books." (Rich, 2008).
This quote from the reading is powerful and as a public education teacher, I feel that there is some truth to this argument. First, students' attention spans have increasingly become shorter because they are used to finding the core material of a topic quickly or finding the answer to their question by simply searching the question in the search bar. I think that medical diagnoses of ADHD have also increased because of the shorter attention spans being developed by constant use of technology at home. I know there are other factors to consider, but seeing as most children spend upwards to almost 2 hours on a computer, it is hard for a teacher to get students to engage in an activity for a longer time than what they are used to. Hopefully, technology or teaching methods will adapt to each other and hopefully produce a positive outcome.
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