yelp. sorry i had to actually post my essay.

Don’t Blame the Internet

I honestly could not tell you how many times I have heard the question “Are you on that crazy myface again?” For one, it is either Facebook or Myspace, not myface, but I really never feel like explaining this difference to my grandma, her being so ‘behind’ with technology and such; she barely knows how to turn on a computer, much less understand the difference between two popular social networks. I have noticed that no matter what I use the computer for, I am always being accused of just wasting time on the internet on these sites, or other sites that are said to be useless and junk. My grandma, as I’m sure most older people do, tells me all the time that the internet has nothing but hurt the way our ‘youngsters’ are being raised and taught. She says that we probably don’t even know what an encyclopedia is, and looks one day for paper and pencil to have no value and have them stop being made because everything is being done with all this ‘digital nonsense.’ I usually just let her go off on her rant about the modern world and tune her out; she is always going to think everything was better back in ‘her day’. This is probably because I know that I have not let the way I use the internet effect my everyday life. I don’t talk to people in internet lingo like I would when I want to shorthand conversations during chatting or instant messaging. I know what an encyclopedia is; in fact, I have one, along with a dictionary and thesaurus in my dorm room right now. I even write hand written letters every now and then, not just emails. However, I can’t say the same for others. It is sad to realize that maybe the internet does affect people in ways that is not to their benefit. Take my little brother for instance. I remember the week before I started college; he had left a note for my grandparents and I on the kitchen table telling us that he had went to his friend’s house to play basketball. It read: “goin to masons. B bak round 7.” Of course, this was ridiculous to my grandparents, and even I thought it was a little pathetic that he didn’t take the time to spell out even half the words in his seven word not. I started wondering if he wrote like this all the time; and I started wondering if the internet really had such a negative effect on the way people read and write today. Are we really falling victim in the literacy world due to the internet?

Needless to say I was very relieved, yet somewhat shocked, when my little brother’s seventh grade English teacher sent home his personal narrative from his portfolio with only minimal corrections; the majority having nothing to do with grammar. In fact, this is the case for most people. They never struggle with writing properly in regular forms of writing like classroom assignments, and still are able to use internet short hands while online to communicate quickly. Not to mention our writing abilities physically, like being able to type many words per minute, has increased overall for people of all ages. The advantage to type things out has many advantages. The writer is able to make corrections easier than with paper and pencil, or especially pen, because you just hit backspace and have no evidence that you had once recorded another idea. Sharing the document is also easier as it can be emailed or posted to a blog.

“Those blogs are nothing but gossip,” is another stab I have heard from non-users of the internet. “Anything wrote on the internet has no value, especially not like a book.” So do the older generations really think that we young people are not capable of writing anything useful because we only write that ‘useless junk’ on the internet? It isn’t too pleasing to think that whatever you may write will never gain any credibility because of the medium it was displayed on. I personally think that I am a decent writer; being capable of writing something worth reading and writing something of value, whether on the internet or handwritten. Yes, I may do more writing on the internet through blogs, email, chatting, or even updating my Facebook status, but I am writing, and it does have meaning. I am actually writing more than people 20 years before me. The people who only wrote what they had to for class.

But can you say that all the writing I or anyone else does while on the internet has any beneficial factors to it? I could post blogs every half an hour, and still have no significance. I could email my friend from across the country and not have any meaning to it other than to say hi. Is this type of writing really positive? Of course, any type of writing can give you practice if you do it properly; it involves an effort by that person. By participating in different forms of writing online like in the posting of blogs, the writer must challenge himself to tackle the new and different obstacles that are found when writing in different ways. Just as Andrew Sullivan mentioned in his article “Why I Blog,” there is a type of challenge that requires the author of the blog to have enough courage to post their thoughts. Blogging allows for the criticism by other people and makes the author focus on different ways to please his or her audience. This gives the author experience in audience, which is fundamental in writing any paper.

Just as people are writing more than ever before, people are reading more on the internet. I t may be because most types of readings are so easily accessible through the internet, and ranges from a wide variety of material that interests every type of person. It can be argued that the reading people do on the internet has no benefit to the development of their reading skills. The way that the information is received and processed in the brain is not properly training our minds to think and understand; we just skim the material and don’t develop an understanding of what we are reading. Author Chris Hedges argues in his article “America the Illiterate,” that people today don’t really read things to understand, people just read things to get the facts and never focus on truly understanding the topic or allowing any real comprehension. However, reading is reading, and any type of reading requires the comprehension of the material and therefore is exercising your reading abilities. The different forms of reading have nothing to do with the value of it. Whether they read news stories, emails, blogs, or other forms on online literature, people are reading, it just depends on how much they choose to get out of that reading and whether they really use the information to their benefit.

Author Nicholas Carr argues in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” that the way people use the internet has affected the way our minds think and comprehend things. His point seems to say that America is growing more ignorant everyday because of the dependency we are developing for the internet. The need to do something for ourselves and actually think about a task or piece of information is decreasing as the internet makes it so easy to become dependent and rely on a type of technology to just give us the answers. I know that I am guilty for every time I am given an assignment requiring information that I need to research, I head straight for my computer to log on to the world wide web. I can easily find thousands of hits on just about any topic I can think of, and not have to step foot into a library like in the past. The internet has made it possible to find information with sites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. These search engines allow you type in a phrase or topic and they automatically generate a list of sites relating to those words. But does this really eliminate the need for libraries? Can a person really find all the information they need for everything on the internet and is this resource really harming the way people think by simply decreasing the effort required to obtain information? I would think, that just like reading and writing choices, they affect the internet has on your overall thinking and comprehension depends on how much you allow it to. As I mentioned before, I do acknowledge the fact that I rely on the internet to supply me with information through search engines and different websites, but in no way do I believe I am dependent. I am not a walking encyclopedia, so of course I need some type of resource to obtain information, but I can navigate my way through a library if need be. Just recently I had to complete an assignment that required the use of our library on campus. I successfully found the book I needed through the, yes, online catalogue. However, I did have to physically go to the library and locate the book on the shelves. I then had to take the time to sit down and go through the book, reading pages thoroughly to get an idea of the information. I had no trouble with the use of the library, and honestly have no preference between it and the use of the internet, as long as I am able to complete an assignment or find out what I need to know. The internet is easier and accessible at all times, and compared to a time consuming library that isn’t open at all hours, choosing the internet shouldn’t always be considered a quick and easy way out of things, but a reliable resource that provides promptly. What bad is there in that?

So it really depends on which aspect you choose to look at when trying to decide if the internet is changing the types of readers and writers people are becoming as they use it, and just what type of readers and writers those people are. For the lazy internet user who just blogs all day about what interesting television program they are watching and responds to live conversation with internet lingo; or to the person who actually reads about useless information, that form of internet activity is not likely to benefit them whatsoever in growing and developing in literacy and those aren’t going to be good readers and writers. But when a person chooses to use the internet as a source of knowledge and engage in the information and when a person writes about things that can impact someone or just has a purpose, they can develop as readers and writers. It all just depends on the person and what they allow themselves to become. The internet has not created the kind of reader or writer people become; people allow themselves to become a certain type of reader or writer.



Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group. July/Aug. 2008. Web. 27 Sept. 2009.
Hedges, Chris. “America the Illiterate.” Truthdig. Zuade Kaufman. 10 Nov. 2008. Web. 27 Sept. 2009.
Sullivan, Andrew. “Why I Blog.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group. 18 Nov. 2008. Web. 27 Sept. 2009.