Brandon's Response to Thompson

Some believe that technology has sabotaged our ways of writing, whereas others argue that we’re in a literacy revolution. The side not supporting technology and writing as successful claim that Facebook statuses are self-centered and pointless, video/slideshows have replaced conventional essays and short-hand texting has destroyed the English language.
On the other hand, a new study has yielded interesting results. Clive Thompson is an advocate and supporter of this new study. The study has been headed by Andrea Lunsford and the project is called the Stanford Study of Writing. This project collected different types of sample writings from 14,672 students to study their writing. She discovered that this generation writes more than any other previous generation because so much writing is done online. Over a quarter of their writing took place beyond the classroom. The internet has drastically changed when and what we write about. Before the internet, writing was hardly done outside the classroom. Now, we use the internet almost daily and at the same time people are writing and sharing information.
One unique aspect that Lunsford’s team found was the fact that students performed remarkably well at writing to an audience with a purpose. Every piece of writing has an audience and the tone used needs to adapt to that audience. Most online writing is in the form of public information sharing such as status updates or short bios or even in chat rooms. A big difference, as Thompson describes, is that students today almost always write for an audience unlike the previous generation where that almost never occurred. He goes on to claim that students today perceive good writing as being able to persuade, organize and debate a topic effectively. In class essays are more dull due to the fact that there’s no real point for the student to write his piece other than to receive a grade from his/her one audience member: the professor. It was also found that short-hand text language was not discovered in any sample academic writing essay. Good writing just doesn’t come from the internet though; traditional teaching still has to be utilized. Technology is moving the literacy revolution in new directions where long writing pieces can be written well and sometimes combining resources to work together. Thompson’s main message is that young people know who and why they're writing and that’s the most important factor.
In my opinion, these types of technology have completely changed our literacy; not necessarily for the worse. Technology has completely revolutionized when, why, how, and what we write. The internet has allowed us to write because we want to, not because it’s a requirement to pass a class. Although some people might object that short hand can become so prevalent that it could show up in serious writing I maintain that it hasn’t happened yet, and as long as students are focused on their audience it will stay that way. My personal experiences prove that I have never transferred short-hand into serious academic writing. Depending on the audience I will change my tone, mood and language to fit that audience for whatever is most effective to argue my point. I think that is what technology has shown us. Different audiences require different tools of technology to prove a point.