Literacy... Evolution in Progress

Literacy… Evolution in Progress

            Literacy, is something that is that can be defined in several different ways. Many writers have tried to give their own personal perspective on literacy, but now I am here to give you my own personal take on literacy, what it means to me, and how it stacks up to other authors definitions. In the simplest form, literacy is a mode of one human being communicating to another through symbols, letters, and words. But literacy has so much more power than just that, and through the years I believe literacy has evolved from the technology accesses able to everyone, it my be good, it may be bad, but that is not for me to decide.

            My favorite example in how literacy does evolve comes for the article Is Google Making Us Stupid? By Nicolas Carr. He describes how technology is changing how we read, he states “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski”(Carr).  This is something I can relate to. With Google an incredulous amount of information is always available at my fingertips. If I have to read an entire article to find the information I want, I most likely am going to be very frustrated. The way I look at it is I am not missing information, I am making more effective use of my time, and that is something I can accredit to Google. I can use it to find extensive information in fractions of a second. Does skimming make me less literate? This problem is not only seen with Carr, when he asks his friends he comes up with the conclusion  “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing”(Carr). Even as I write this very essay I find myself being distracted by what’s around me…. The X games are on, watch a run, write a bit more, go on Facebook, write a bit more. I believe this is just another step in the evolution of literacy. Todays world is just incredibly fast moving and it is almost impossible to keep up if you are not constantly multitasking. We may not be going as in depth with our reading and literacy but I truly believe America as a whole is able to great a large variety of literacy with technology. We are able to read about things many miles away instants after it occurs, people are always just looking for the next interesting thing to keep moving forward. Another prime example of people taking shortcuts to literacy stems from the article Our Semi Literate youth? Not so Fast by Andrea A. Lunsford. In this article it specifically talks about how college age students use text slang often, and how it might be detrimental to their literacy skills. Lunsford’s main argument can be summarized in her statement “So yes, these students did plenty of emailing and texting; they were online a good party of every day; they joined social networking sites enthusiastically. But rather than leading a new illiteracy, these activities seemed to help them develop a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range of abilities”(Lunsford). The way Lunsford looks at writing with the new age technology is something I had not truly thought of before this. I do agree with what she is saying however, through high school I have been taught to read Shakespeare, epic poems, and so many more types of writing. This new age form of texting, bogging, and emailing is not making us lazy but it just shows us the new age style of writing. As writing is always evolving it is important to stay familiar with the current and past styles of writing. I appreciate Lundford’s view as she looks at more of the positive aspects technology has on writing.

            Writing is not only changing because technology has allowed us the shortcuts of communication and searching but it has changed the way writers can publish their own work. Andrew Sullivan is an extremely successful blogger and in his article Why I Blog he explains “as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that’s enabling writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before.”(Sullivan) This is a perfect example of how technology has improved literacy in the sense that more people get published. People are able to express themselves without the difficulties of publishing companies and editors. In this sense this is literacy at its purest form. Each author expressing themselves with no limitations. That is something that was never achieved until blogging became prominent.

            I do not however agree with all of the articles I read concerning literacy. Some are very unusual, and as far as I am concerned have an outright absurd approach on literacy. Chris Hedges completed a piece called America the Illiterate. This article seemed to only scrutinize America and its literacy as a whole, in a somewhat angry fashion. Chris Hedge’s uses unsupported facts such as “there are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate”(hedges). This means that according to Hedges an average of one out of every three people you meet can barely read or write. Where did these facts come from? From personal experience, I rarely, if ever have met a fully-grown adult who cannot read and write. I believe Hedge’s is utilizing scare tactics to lead us to believe we are not competent. This is something that I do not agree with, I would rather praise people so that people have something to look up to, rather than scare them into learning more. If someone truly wants to learn and gain a deeper ability to read and write, they will do it on his or her own. Hedges then goes on to insult those who are illiterate even more as he says

“The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless.  They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands.”(Hedges)

Hedges just continues on and on, criticizing these people for their lack of knowledge. This is not the fault of technology, anyone who ends up in the situation he is describing would not be functional in todays society. Hedges seems to be picking out specific cases to criticize America as a whole and because of that I believe he is describing literacy completely inaccurately. One last point Hedges makes that is silly is “During the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while…. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0.” (Hedges). How can he compare the people of today to the people of the past? So much has changed in the time period between these two debates that comparing them is unbelievable. To me it is similar to comparing old English to modern English and calling anyone who spoke modern English stupid. When technology, ideas and culture evolves so does the way people communicate. The literacy is not missing, people can still communicate in a very effective way, it has just changed as it always does.  America the Illiterate has a very pessimistic view on literacy and I find it ridiculous.

            Technology is changing at a rate faster than anyone has ever seen before. As technology changes, the way people read, write, think, and communicate in any sort of way has to change as well. Whenever humanity started literacy is nowhere near the same as it is today and it would be completely unfair to come why is it any different today? People may not have the same literacy as 50 years ago; instead literacy has evolved into something completely new. Do I expect literacy to be completely different within twenty years? Yes, I do technology will not stop progressing and that means neither will the way people communicate with each other. In the future it may be perfectly acceptable to write books that are fully informal, who knows, only time will tell.