The Mirror of ERISED

I’m not going to lie about it; Baron’s Always On began to worry me about a possible lack of excitement when I began reading Chapter Six: Having Your Say. While I was a bit confused and struggling to find interest at first, as usual I quickly began making connections.

It is difficult to find connections with types of computer-mediated communications that I am not exactly familiar with. Throughout this chapter I began to learn a great deal about the history of some of the CMCs that I am not as comfortable with yet. The connection that struck me as most interesting was definitely the idea that talk radio has in a way transformed into blogging.

Last Saturday night, I went to the first concert that Grounds For Change (the on-campus student-run coffee shop, for anyone reading this who isn't paying - or getting paid by - Allegheny tuition dollars) hosted this semester. The first guy to go up sat on a piano bench and plucked out a few very mellow, deceivingly simplistic songs of self-exploration and reflection on his electric guitar. Everyone sat in a series of semi-circles around him on the floor, clapped appreciatively after each song, and laughed light-heartedly whenever he would make a witty observation or improvise a bit of wordplay between songs. He was fun.

It became clear, however, after the second guy played a few songs, that there was a reason that the first guy went first. The second guy was a real crowd-pleaser. He asked all of the audience to stand in a very close circle surrounding him, so that no one was farther than 3 or so feet away from him. He stood in the circle and played the life out of his guitar, and made the audience sing along to the repetitive songs. After each song, he would bestow some truly touching philosophies on life to the forty or so enchanted college students standing around him. At one point, he started to explain how grateful he was that we call came out to see the show. "What a beautiful thing it is," he said, "that all of us are here tonight, right now. So many shows, you go and see a bunch of pretentious losers up on stage trying to act like they're cooler than everyone else there, and everyone buys into it and then leaves as soon as the show is over so that they can go home and blog about it."

Wikipedia has always been mysterious to me. But I've used it a couple of times. My professors here and teachers in high school always told me that I could start looking at a topic by searching Wikipedia but to never cite it as a source.

The quote Baron cites in Always On by Robert McHenry really struck me. Considering the accuracy of Wikipedia entries he states, "some unspecified quasi-Darwinian process will assure that those writings and editings by contributors of greatest expertise will survive; articles will eventually reach a steady state that corresponds to the highest degree of accuracy" (Baron, 2008).

But when? And how will we know that Wikipedia has reached this point? Who will decide that everything is finally up to par? "Wikipedians" will. If they ever stop playing their game.

Wikipedia is filling the ultimate role of soap box in this technological age. I considered creating an account as I was browsing the site for information to write this blog. But then I wondered what in the world I considered myself enough of an expert on to think that I was worthy of telling people about it. I wondered if "Wikipedians" have this thought process or if it really is a glorified blogging site. Baron writes of professors that are addicted to writing and editing Wikipedia and I'm glad those people are out there.

But the largest question is why people write and edit for Wikipedia. It may be very prestigious to think that you have established the ultimate truth about a certain subject, but a minute later someone else can simply erase your thoughts and replace them with their own. It seems like a great game. Who is going to be the one to write or make the final edit to the topic of say, "Blogs" when McHenry's day of reckoning has come and all the Wikipedians editing that topic say "that's it"?

It occurred to me that this might have something to do with Erikson's theory of generativity and that we all might want to leave our little mark on the knowledge that gets passed down to the next generation. Or it may be that we all just need to put our two cents in as they always say. Regardless, Wikipedia has provided a means of free (objective) speech using technology and seems to be striving to be the ultimate democratic compendium of knowledge.

My English teacher that I had for all of my Senior and Junior years, as well as for half of my Sophomore year, was notorious for disliking poetry. He always said that he appreciated it and understood the importance of poetry to the English language and culture. He just didn't enjoy reading it, analyzing it, discussing it, or teaching it. So, for two and a half years we read the classics. Most of them were either novels about coming of age or maturity, like Catcher in the Rye or A Separate Peace, or dystopia novels, like 1984, Animal Farm, Anthem, or Brave New World. Standard high school stuff. When the time came, though, when I and my classmates would be graduating in about a month, I finally voiced my complaint that we never studied any poetry, from any era. He grumbled about it for a week or so, but then finally admitted that it was an important thing to cover before heading off to college. He handed out quite an extensive list of famous and influential English and American poets and said that we had to hand in a page-long biography of each of them along with any one of their poems we chose. Two in particular stand out: "The Tyger" by William Blake and "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks. I was reminded of the latter while reading Chapter 2 of David Crystal's book, txting: the gr8 db8.

I really had fun reading the first two chapters of David Crystal's txtng, :) so my blog is about several topics discussed.

I found a really funny YouTube video that suggested to me the innate value of a fast form of communication. I will not ruin the result of the competition between text messaging and Morse Code, but I found it interesting to think that both forms of communication were valued for their speed, which seems to be a large reason for abbreviations, lack of punctuation and capitalization, etc., in texting. These are the elements that some people think are negatively affecting our language. Yet valuing speed of communication saved some passengers of the Titanic.

It is also interesting to consider that I have never heard of anyone suggesting that morse code was a negative influence on our communication, yet it was not even letters, but dots and dashes. I understand that Morse code was not used by such a multitude of people, but isn't text abbreviations, lack of punctuation, etc., just a form of code? We can interpret that "u" stands for "you." Regardless, it added to the positive light that Crystal seems to be shedding on text messaging.

Wntd 2 c f cld wrt w/t vwls. Hrd!

This is how i would actually text:
I wanted 2 c if i could write w/out vowels-it was hard!

i think it would have taken me longer to think about how to write w/out vowels than to just type them on my non-qwerty phone keypad

This is a text msg i got today:
"if you havent scheduled a time to see the place yet i think if youre free earlier you should see the place so you have a better idea before room draw"
This is another:
"Ill call u after asg"

These messages were both from female friends, but as Crystal explains in Chapter 2, the messages (even without vowels) are intelligible. I would say that these texts are fairly representative of the texts I receive on a regular basis. There are several interesting characteristics of these messages.

David Crystal’s txtng the gr8 db8, could possibly become one of my favorite books. I am one of the people that contributed to the 205 text messages sent out Christmas Day of 2006. In the first two chapters alone I have really begun enjoying the stance Crystal holds for texting. In comparison to the previous book I read by Naomi Baron, called Always On, I find myself relating much more to Crystal’s statements. I enjoy texting and I honestly do not feel as though it is hindering my linguistic abilities. I also enjoy the newness of texting and how much of a mystery it still remains.

Personally, I have not really determined a distinct method of texting, some days I will use a lot of short hand and abbreviations filled with emoticons; however, other days I will simply use complete sentences as though I were writing a research paper. A big question that has crept into my mind while reading Crystal’s book is: do people have a distinct texting style? Are most people pretty consistent with how they formulate their text messages or is it something that changes from message to message?

In the eighth and final chapter of his book, txtng: the gr8 db8, David Crystal gives the reader an array of examples of criticism of and support for (mostly criticism) text messaging from modern society. According to him, people from all over and from all different fields have pointed their prophetic finger at the mobile phone, blaming it and its texting functions for many of the world's linguistic woes. Even after one manages to get through Crystal's obviously and heavily biased arguments, though, the reader sees him more or less effectively refute all of these accusations with realitive ease and simplicity. There is one point that he brought up, however, that at first just piqued my interest, but then began to absorb more and more of my attention and thought.

Crystal had a number of really interesting thoughts in Chapters 7 and 8 of Txtng: the gr8 db8, one even relating to my interest in texting in other languages. However, I found that the relationship between texting and development of formal language skills in adolescence caught my attention.

Crystal suggests, as we also discussed in class, that it takes a firm grasp on the formal conventions of a language to be able to play with it in text. He lends evidence to this idea by describing recent studies on the effects of texting on language skills of adolescents. Crystal quotes recent studies of reading and vocabulary ability of pre-teen students as finding, "that the younger the children when they received their first phone, the higher their scores." I found this quote particularly intriguing because my gut reaction to this statement was that it didn't seem right. I would have thought that it would have been more beneficial to have had a longer time to develop conventional formal language skills before being exposed to a medium with which to play with the language. However, Crystal is suggesting that the ability to play with the language suggests that these students are adept at language skills in the first place and this is evidenced by their texting behaviors. He also suggests that more research should be done with students of varying aptitude levels to see if these results are the same with other students.

Was it the extra practice and the intellectually stimulating task of playing with language that enhanced these students' language skills, and if so, would this be beneficial to students of all aptitude levels? Should we be encouraging younger and younger students, or students struggling with language skills to text more?

Crystal suggests that as long as teachers, parents, and researchers can teach children the difference between when it is appropriate to use texting language and when it is not, every opportunity to write and communicate is beneficial to the development of formal language skills, especially in the ability to summarize and be concise. However, he does describe a concern with the structure of messages in texts as being simple and short statements and that this method of communication impedes the ability to make detailed descriptions and explanations in formal writing. Which should be valued more in formal writing, conciseness or detail? Technically it depends on the style and field of writing, but in general, are we sacrificing the development of eloquence for effective summary by learning texting as a variety of language, and if so, is this a good thing?

I once saw a stand-up comedian on Comedy Central (I happened to be taking a break from reading Teen Vogue, listening to Britney, and playing Age of Empires II) who talked about arguing with his girlfriend. He relayed how, after an argument had been going on for a while, she would start just throwing any random insult and indignity at him to try to win, completely ignoring the topic being discussed. While arguing about why he never hadn't done the dishes in a week, for example, she would suddenly start attacking his sexual potency. Bauerlein kind of strikes me as a similar sort of cat. What, you don't agree with me that college freshman are less academically equipped now than they ever have been? Fine! I'll just start arguing about Harry Potter! Oh, you don't know who the King of Sweden was in 1658? Well, graphic novels aren't really books, anyway.

After reading the second chapter of The Dumbest Generation, I went in search of how much high school students read for class in a given year. I know that personally, I would LOVE to read for pleasure, but I am too busy reading text for class and trying to give my eyes a break once in a while to be able to devour a delicious piece of fiction. But one would think that any reading in general would add reading skill and knowledge, so are high school and college students even reading out of necessity? I came across a blog by high school literature teachers. One entry was particularly interesting:

"I had a colleague who used to teach a novel a week in her AP Literature class - I asked her how the kids could possibly keep up with that pace. She told me that they were highly motivated. Then I asked her if she quizzed her students to see if they were really doing the reading. She then told me that the discussions and essays were enough to show that they were doing the reading. I finally convinced her to give a pop quiz. When she did - she discovered that not one student in her entire class had actually done the reading."
-Joseph Scotese

This struck a chord with me because I took an AP literature course my senior year of high school and was told by most of my peers that I was an over-achiever because I actually read the books we were assigned...spark notes was the "cool" and normal thing to do. Because I did not have time to read books of my choice, I instead squeezed every ounce of enjoyment I could out of Crime and Punishment and Paradise Lost (which I really did enjoy) that were assigned by the teacher. I am actually hearing the snickers even from my fellow Junior Seminar classmates to whom I am admitting this. I can also see how my teacher could have thought that we were all actually reading, because a select few of my classmates and I did most of the responding to his discussion questions.

I really want to disagree with Bauerlein that we are the dumbest generation. But I am wondering how much I and my fellow college classmates are really reading the books and articles we are assigned for class, much less for pleasure. Camille and I were discussing this chapter before I started this blog and would like to propose an activity for the class.

This is our challenge to you, classmates: Record how many pages you were assigned to read in the past week, due last Monday through tomorrow (Monday). Then also record how many of the pages of each assignment you read in entirety. Separately, how many pages you "skimmed" and also separately, how many pages you took notes on while reading. In class we would like to discuss how much you feel you learn from reading assignments versus having lectures or discussions in class about the topics. Do you feel you could do well on a pop quiz on the readings for our Junior Seminar class?

It seems as though every chapter I read in Mark Bauerlein's book, The Dumbest Generation, follows the same pattern, as far as my reactions to it and my feelings about it. He usually makes some pretty interesting points with some at least moderately convincing arguments. He also, though, always makes arguments that just rub me the wrong way, and backs them up with further arguments that are flawed or seem ludicrous to me. But I guess that's the nature of reading highly biased literature of any sort, whether you agree with the author's main premise or not. Chapter five was no exception.

I must tangent on this chapter. The idea of coddling children/people for the sake of self-esteem is a personal peeve of mine. My tangent is going to agree with Baurlein.

I'm not going to suggest that we never tell children/college students that they do a good job...when they actually do. But Stupnisky et al. (2007) suggests that self-esteem is one of the most researched topics in psychology. This vast storehouse of knowledge about it has yielded little in the academic impact of self-esteem on academic achievement.

"'We need to stop endlessly repeating, "You're special," and having children repeat that back. Kids are self-centered enough already." (pg. 192) According to Piaget, children are supposed to grow out of egocentrism at the end of preschool (Gjerde, Block, & Block, 1986). We don't need to bring it back superficially later in life.

There are times when I really struggle with just going along with what Mark Bauerlein claims in the “The Betrayal of the Mentors” in his book, The Dumbest Generation. Bauerlein throws so many quotes, other people’s opinions, and even just a ton of summaries all throughout his book. This has been a huge complication for me because I feel like it makes it difficult for me to understand exactly what he thinks when his claims are all through everyone else’s opinions that he just simply agrees with. Since this is the last chapter we’ll be discussing in class, I guess it’s fair to say that there have been many times that I get lost in all of the statistics, quotes, and summaries. It is hard for me many times to pick his claim out of everything he is trying to say.