"The New Literacy" by Clive Thompson

The article “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson continues to discuss the debate on the affect of the growing technology and the Internet on the literacy of kids today. Andrea Lunsford, a University professor, collected all different writings from her students and concluded that technology not only isn’t hurting our writing ability but is bracing it, giving our youth the ability to create texts in all different forms. She explains that since most socializing now takes place over the Internet, this generation is experiencing a revolution in writing and literacy. This is something that never was done with students in the past. Class assignments are usually done just to get a good grade but blogs, interviews, movie reviews, journal entries, and even lists of ‘25 things about yourself’ are ways where these students can express who they are and what they stand for.

Questions:
1. Even though it may be true that new media is giving our youth practice in writing and a “cool direction” is this short-hand, misspelled words, and ungrammatical new way of writing appropriate and even worth it?

2. There are two sides to this debate on the growing technology and “new media”- which one offers more advantages to the future of our countries literacy? Are books and newspapers going to be written in short-hand, IM-language soon as well?

3. The Internet benefits those kids who would never pick up a newspaper but would read a short AOL-news article on their laptops. However, is there any fear that these kids may be getting the wrong facts? Can we completely rely on the Internet for the news around the world? If so, will there be a day where newspapers just wont exist anymore?