A lot of the frustration with this is that Pakistan hasn’t been as cooperative as the U.S. would like.  I’m sure that this drone issue is making attempts to occupy certain Pakistani areas far more difficult.  Also, I wonder if Pakistan taking a hard line on this issue because of the image of “bully” that the U.S. has in the Muslim world (and in other nations as well)?  With sentiment in Arab nations that the U.S. feels it can just come in and take over a nation, the Pakistani government may feel they need to draw a line in order to not lose respect among its neighboring nations.  Although it may not be in their best overall interest, it may be in their best regional interest to maintain this hard stance, even though it could be hinder efforts to end al Qaeda.  This is just one image issue that the U.S. must overcome in that region, but clearing up this issue could be a good first step in creating better relations with other countries.

I am torn on behavioral marketing.  From the marketing professional side, I see it as a great way to really deliver to the consumer what they like (probably) and eliminate all the clutter that they would normally have to sort through.  On the other hand, as a consumer, I want to actively seek information that I will use to make a decision that is, in my opinion, the least biased and most reliable.  Having information about every aspect of my life used to decide that for me may not provide what I am looking for, especially if I am looking to try something new.

The problem I see is that as consumers and users of the Internet, we may have to take our medicine.  Even though recent studies have shown that consumers don’t really want behavior marketing, it is really the only way for social networking sites and blogs can make money in their landscape.  These bring nice revenue streams so that they can continue providing content without a cost to the consumer (i.e. subscriptions).  There have been some other options thrown about, but they don’t seem to be viable working solutions.  I personally don’t mind the ads that are distributed on my Facebook page.  For now, I am happy ignoring whatever the Internet is trying to sell me.

However, the fear of losing a patent is quite strong.  Rachael brings up some ways in which her own company can move ahead with social networking so that they are not left out in the cold if it does shift from status no (and no) to status quo.  She suggests starting small and working the social networking approach internally and build from there.  I think this is a great way of tackling the problem as it not only introduces the idea (with measurable results a few months in), but also allows the company to work out any kinks, set some guidelines and prepare for wider launch should that option be appropriate.  I for one will be interested to see how it all works out for Rachael’s organization.

I believe this is a great point by Leah, as more and more health care professionals are placed in situations that may be foreign to them.  Take for instance a health care worker in a third world country.  There are many factors that a worker may be unfamiliar with, such as the quality of food and water, the normal lifestyles of the individuals, and even cultural customs that may preclude them from following medical orders.  The on-the-fly information that workers collect could be invaluable to fellow workers or trainees planning on facilitating like programs in other parts of the world.  We may have been trained to think computers are for organized information, but in a world of complete chaos, a little disorganized data could be just what we need to help with the mess.

Although technology brought about this need for a shift, I don’t think the technology pulled the trigger.  It may have provided the gun, been the bullet, etc., but a number of other factors contributed in the current state of the print journalism business.  For example, some union deals behind newspapers are causing newspapers to hemorrhage money, some newspaper families have more interest in the prestige of owning the paper and less about the success of it and some just haven’t figured out how to initiate a pay wall successfully.  So newspapers didn’t do themselves any favors in this situation, and you can be sure that the Internet didn’t help one bit.

1. Greater emphasis placed on grammatical rules in formative years – Children are logged onto instant messaging services and have cell phones from a very young age.  They may be able to spell a number of words but certainly don’t have a solid grasp of the English language.  If they are communicating via these services before an understanding of the written language is formed, they may be developing their own language habits through repetition without incorporating proper grammatical form. With this accelerated usage of written communication, the instruction of language principles should be accelerated.  I would not be surprised if students now took to language principles sooner since they have these increased communication opportunities.

2. Educators’ emphasis on divide between personal communication and academic communication – Like was found in the Pew Center study, 38% of students incorporated shortcuts like “LOL” and “UR” in book reports and 25% used emotions.  Something that educators may need to stress is the difference between written personal communication and what they write for school (and eventually work).  In fact, the use of shortcuts could be encouraged in personal communication, but the line should be clearly drawn by educators through explaining that those shortcuts have no place beyond the personal communication realm.

3. Wait for new technology advances to eliminate texting – With the advance of technology, will “texting” be around for much longer? I wouldn’t be surprised to see cell phones come on the market that have voice recognition features that turn the spoken word into the written word.  They may also be able to translate between languages.  It would be faster than texting and much easier.  Problem solved!

Clive Thompson on the New Literacy

Although a counterpoint to my general argument, this piece is a great resource about this topic.  Thompson cites others who have felt (or thought about things) the way I have and discussed the big picture of literacy.  The way he presents his argument is very convincing and well developed.  One thing I think Thompson does not discuss is smaller picture issues that I look into, like grammar going downhill.  These little picture things can just be a precursor or catalyst of big picture issues.  An example of this can be found in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point.  He discussed how one of the first things Rudy Guiliani did to help clean up NYC was to have people wash the graffiti from the train cars and get “windshield washers” off the street.  Just these small picture actions were the catalyst for cleaning up the city, and miniscule actions like these could be the defining actions in the outcome of big picture issues.

Notes on the triviality of Twitter | The Mysterious East

A thrice-published author and journalism professor, Philip Lee discusses how the novelty (and ease) of Twitter may hurt journalism.  With newspapers struggling to maintain readership any way they can, they have taken to Twitter.  But the restrictions of Twitter can not really do much to help journalism beyond providing a link to a story online.  I like this blog post because it explored a topic that another professor mentioned to him that got him thinking.  Lee broke down the problem technically and applied the basics to the field of journalism.  It is a thoughtful piece that says things simply.  Although he does make it sound like every article written is worthy of high praise and remembrance (which I definitely do not believe in), his point about the stories being lost is provoking.

Is Text Messaging/Chat room slang ruining academic writing? | Forum

Interesting forum.  I wanted to find a forum that had a number of respondents to provide both face in the crowd anecdotal evidence along with links to scholarly research on the matter.  It is good to see people relay their fears and discuss the issue from a number of different areas.

The Web of Language

Dennis Baron, a professor of English at the University of Illinois (and one of my former professors) maintains a blog pertaining to mostly issues that deal in the languages.  Dr. Baron has compiled a number of articles about texting and language and always explains the stories in informative and insightful ways.

Writing, Technology and Teens | Pew Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Center is always a great source for info regarding journalism and communication.  Great support, great funding, great respect and an overall quality organization that tracks much of what media do.  This study covers much of the crux of my argument.  One interesting tidbit from the study: “85% of American teens use some form of digital messaging, but only 38% [ONLY?!?! – ed] incorporate shortcuts like LOL in their book reports, and fewer still, about 25%, use emoticons like the smiley face, , in their essays.”  Can’t wait for a Dickens rewrite with, “It was the best of times , it was the worst of times …”

Debate: Is text messaging causing the destruction of the English language? | Helium.com

Helium.com is another site that provides a forum for discussion.  What I particularly like about this site it that the format of the page provides Yes/No positions side-by-side, allows users to vote and contains areas for comments and further discussion.  There are many debates available and related debates that may provide some outside info that pertains to another topic.  Nice site that is less scholarly but fully allows multiple viewpoints to be heard.

1)    Basic grammar usage – Character limitations (or lack of limitations) are both features of the Internet.  It can make you take shortcuts and it can allow you to say as much as you want without repercussions.  In a texting world, numbers zero through nine are much easier to type with digits versus the grammatically correct spelling of the words.  Also, your or you’re? In mobile communication, it’s “UR.”  I personally have seen this used in college papers.  Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s still a result of texting.  People relying on this “contraction” may be using it to save time, but they may never know the difference when writing it long-form.  These are just two examples of grammatical rules that are typically overlooked in cyberspace.  There are more, and if they become habits of mobile and Internet communication, they will be very tough to break when applied beyond this sphere.

2)    Communicating with other cultures – By resorting to shortcuts and contractions, are we making communication between cultures more difficult.  One of the toughest parts about learning a language is learning the colloquialism of an area or the slang terms that are well known in that specific culture.  We’ve all heard of “lost in translation;” with social networking and tweeting forms of global communication, contractions like LOL and UR may be lost in translation (and add to the confusion) for someone trying to learn our language.  Also, if we are trying to communicate with another culture, one would have to assume that they have their own forms.  In essence, these aspects could just be complicating the communication between cultures.

3)    Establishment of insightful and thorough arguments – In a time of immediacy, the establishment of writings that thoroughly explore a topic could be something of a lost art.  The sharing of opinions can happen very quickly electronically with a post, a counterpoint and a rebuttal.  This can go on and on, but may be limited by unwanted and unsubstantiated comments by other posters.  A conversation may breakdown to only focus on one aspect.  These immediate media options may sidetrack viewpoints and not allow the depth of understanding or thinking flourish.  Also, if the quality of writing is inhibited by habits created by texting or e-mail, people may not be good at establishing thorough arguments.

4)    The loss of storytelling? – Admittedly, I am a pretty bad storyteller.  I try to tell every piece of information as soon as I think of it so I don’t forget it.  This leaves a lot to be desired in the narrative.  So what does this have to do with anything?  There’s a little discussion in Peter Pan about why Peter comes to Wendy’s window.  He says that no boy in “Never-Never-Never-Land” knows any stories, and he is taking the ones he hears back to tell the group.  In essence, the reason why Lost Boys don’t grow up is because they haven’t been told any stories.  From this work of fiction comes a little nugget of truth.  Storytelling is a fine art that lets us know about our past, certain facets of society, and common morals we should all share.  Stories are typical vessels for these teachings and their narrative properties make them easy to remember and fun to listen to (hence the spread of their messages).  Without these lessons, we don’t become fully functioning members of society.  With a decreasing level of writing capabilities, the art of storytelling could be lost, along with the lessons that are contained in them.

5)    Increasing disconnection between older texts – This may be a unsubstantiated fear, but the more we break away from the current forms of writing, the further we may get away from older texts.  If our knowledge of the English language turns into short bursts of thoughts, we may lose the ability to fully appreciate (or understand) prose like that written Shakespeare.

I am young (only 28) and have grown up with some form of technology in my home since I can remember.  Before our first personal computer, we had a digital word processor with a small, wide screen.  Prior to that, electronics like Sega (not the Genesis, but the real original Sega) and Atari.  Point being: I am not that unfamiliar with technology and feel I am a little more comfortable and savvy than the average person my age in this realm.^* However, my “youth” did allow me to develop communication (particularly writing) skills prior to my access to the Internet and mobile technologies, thus allowing me to use these general communication abilities on these new media.

As I am seeing, however, is that not all of us were so “lucky” to be born during this sweet spot in technology.  The current college student has essentially grown up their entire “learning” life with Internet access.  From the time that they learned to read or write a sentence, they could type that sentence into an e-mail message.  Also, this same group has had mobile phone access since the time they were in grade school and text message capability since their early teens (around 2002 the popularity began).  So for this age group, these communication technologies have always been at hand.

I am currently teaching a course at UNC Chapel Hill and it is more or less a “writing intensive” course.  Though it certainly cannot be said for all of the students, I will say that I am somewhat dismayed by the writing abilities of some students in my class.  Some of the students have a tough time putting three complimenting sentences together to form a cohesive paragraph, some have a tough time beginning a sentence and ending it correctly and some just cannot break the habit of email and text messages.  I can’t say all these problems are a result of our current media technologies, but some are from their direct influence.  It is rather difficult grading papers when a lot of these breakdowns happen, as I find it taxing to figure out the intended meaning of the sentence(s) and give them direction on how to say what they are trying to say.^†

In this feeling I am not alone.  Some feel it is hurting just long-form writing like blogging.  Some think it that blogging will be dead because of it.  Others take it to the downfall of journalism.  David Crystal was worried about this so much that he decided to write a book on the matter.  This is not only a passing worry.  To find out if these problems were unfounded or not, Stanford Professor Andrea Lunsford set out to find if students had decreasing quality of writing.  The study looked at the years 2001-2006 (my class fits right in this frame) and found that is was actually getting better.  I think it would be interesting to see if anything has changed since then since texting and picked up greatly since halfway through the study time frame.  Clive Thompson looked at this evidence and basically called it a non-issue because there is nothing wrong with how communication technologies have affected communication because the younger generation will decide how communication will be conducted, and it may not be in some antiquated way as we have been doing it up to this point.

I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.  Do you think it will have an impact?  Will it help communication?  Is this another instance of a technology divide?  Will English writing just be a form of history?

Wow.  I am only 28 years old and I may be classified as a curmudgeon. LOL