Sydney George

Werry

RWS 100

8 October 2018

Is the Internet and Social Media Hurting or Helping this Generation?

When you have a conversation with people nowadays about technology and social media, most people might say they love it and its necessary for everyday life, and some people may say, it’s bad for our brains, or even that its taking over the world. Clive Thompson, a blogger, and journalist for New York Times Magazine, Wired, Fast Company, Mother Jones and Smithsonian, agrees with the vast majority in his book called “Smarter Than You Think” written in 2013. In one chapter of his book called “Public Thinking” he addresses his thoughts and beliefs on internet and social media and how “The Internet has produced a foaming Niagara of writing” (Thompson, 46). His main arguments he makes throughout this chapter of his book is that writing has cognitive benefits, the internet has vastly increased writing, and writing for an audience has great benefits. In this essay I will evaluate Thompsons main claims and arguments and how effective they are, I will discuss the rebuttals he addresses, and lastly I will analyze his strengths and weaknesses.

One of Thompson’s claims that he presents is that writing has dramatically increased from the creation of the internet. In “Public Thinking”, he explains that before we had social media and the internet, most people focused on reading rather than writing and writing was not as popular. Now that social media and the internet have been created and are favored more by the younger generation, writing has become just as big of a deal as reading has but is used in many different forms. He supports his claim that writing wasn’t as popular with an anecdote about his mother as he asks her how much she has written total in the past year. She responded “I sign my name on checks or make lists- that’s it.” (50) This quote shows that since the older age tends to use technology and social media less they do not write nearly as much as the younger generations do. With the younger generation having more knowledge and access to these devices we tend to write a lot more than we realize. An additional example he gives to back up his claim is all the different statistics of how much we use the internet and social media, Thompson asserts this with “we compose 154 billion emails, more than 500 million tweets on Twitter….” (46-47). Being that these are only averages for one day these numbers are outrageous and shocking, and they show us what we actually write as a population and that the internet has provided us a source to do many things such as write, express our feelings, and contact each other. Without the advanced technology we have and the internet, we would not write nearly as much as we do in our everyday lives.

Additionally Thompson presents that writing has cognitive benefits, it can clarify your thinking and improve your memory. Thompson states that writing can clarify our thinking because by writing these thoughts down, it allows us to expand on the idea and think more about them resulting in a clearer, better idea. He says that “By putting half- formed thoughts on a page, we externalize them and are able to evaluate them more objectively” (Thompson 51). What he means by this is that if we just keep the ideas in our heads we are not able to visualize and think upon it because of the overwhelming thoughts going through our brains at once. The motion of writing it down allows us to focus directly and create a better, more precise idea. Similarly, Thompson also argues that writing improves our memory because when we write about things we remember more about them. The evidence he provides for this portion of the claim is an experiment done in 1978 by two psychologists, who tested people to see how well they could remember words that they’d written down versus words that they just read. The results from the study came out that people could remember the words that they wrote down better than the ones they just read. Leading to the idea that we’re better able to retain information from writing it which helps us in our everyday lives, retaining more now than ever before (Thompson 57). Both of these claims pertain effectively to Thompson’s argument because by writing on the internet it is actually improving our brain and strengthening it rather than hurting it as some people may think.

Lastly, one of Thompson’s biggest claims is that writing for an audience, both big and small, has benefits. He discusses that when people know they’re writing or even performing for an audience their work tends to be better, because people are afraid of what other people think about them so they do the best work they can. “I’d argue that the cognitive shift in going from an audience of zero (talking to yourself) to an audience of ten people (a few friends or random strangers checking out your online post) is so big that it’s actually huger than going from ten people to a million people.” (Thompson 56). What he means by this is that no matter how small of an audience it is, just going from writing for yourself, to writing for other people makes a huge difference because you start to write differently making everything better, but from going from changing writing from 10 people to a million isn’t much of a difference since you are already writing for a crowd. Another piece of evidence he provides is an anecdote about Ory Okolloh, a Kenyan- born law student, who had never written for an audience, created a blog about Kenyan corruption, which ended up becoming very popular. She states “Knowing I had these people reading me, I was very self-conscious to build my arguments, back up what I wanted to say. It was very interesting; I got this sense of obligation.” (Thompson 46). By providing this real life story it shows that until you actually write for an audience you don’t realize how important it is. Just like anything else such as sports, or a play, writing is just as important when performing in front of an audience, it pushes people to do better and create their best work.

Someone is always going to have an opposing opinion of what you think no matter what you’re talking about, and Thompson discusses some opposing arguments, called rebuttals, to his claims, in his argument. He addresses two different rebuttals one being an opinion of China which he found out to unexpectedly false, and another one being that people think “college students can’t write as well as in the past.” One of the rebuttals he addresses is how he expected other countries who don’t have free speech, such as China, to write about wanting a democracy when given the opportunity to write. But he was shocked when he visited and was told that “To be able to speak about what’s going on, what we’re watching on TV, what books we’re reading, what we feel about things, that is a remarkable feeling,” (Thompson 58). The Chinese younger generation believe that creating a small audience was a key part of the reform process. By addressing this finding Thompson is addressing to us that what he thought about China was false and some other things he thinks may be false too. The other rebuttal he discusses about college students not writing as well or being thought of lazy was opposed by Andrea Lunsford where she states “today’s freshmen- comp essays are over six times longer than they were back then and also generally more complex” (Thompson, 66). This quote addresses to us that what people think of the younger generation is mostly wrong which could be applied to the subjects of us using the internet and social media. By discussing these rebuttals it portrays that what Thompson is saying does have opposing sides to it and it allows us to be able to disagree with him without feeling wrong, but they also make his argument stronger by showing us that he understands the opposing sides.

As you read Thompsons, “Public Thinking” you may find yourself agreeing with what he is saying or believing his story. This may be because you have the same position as him on these matters or it may be because he is using one of his major strengths, his credible evidence. Throughout Thompsons article he uses various types of evidence with authoritative credibility from sources such as Universities Research, or connectable stories to back up his arguments in forms of examples or statistics. For example, when he speaks upon the audience effect, after explaining it he follows it up with results from an experiment done by Vanderbilt University on small children, and also another experiment with college students. By providing two different experiments done with both younger and older students it provides us two different sides that have the same results, giving us a reason to believe it is true and credible. Another example is that he provides an incredible amount of statistics in the beginning of his article, which starts his argument off strong drawing his readers in to believe and help take his side of the argument. Without his credible examples, evidence, and statistics it would be harder to agree with him, believe his stories or claims and also his argument would not be as strong as it is.

On the other hand, Thompsons article isn’t perfect as he lacks in some areas, specifically his uses of examples, as he doesn’t provide details to back them up or relate to his argument. Throughout his argument he provides statistics, examples, and facts and then leaves them without giving detail on why it pertains to his argument or what the purpose is of it. An example of this is when he speaks upon the United Kingdom and their peak letter- writing years and how the United States’ writing of letters expanded when the United States Postal Service made sending mail cheaper. After introducing this story and expanding upon it for a whole paragraph he provides no connection to his argument and it is somewhat confusing. When stories and examples are just thrown in like this it not only confuses the reader but it isn’t a good strategy if he is trying to convince us. Although he does this, I still thought his strengths outweigh his weaknesses and I found his argument convincing.

After reading “Public Thinking” it has opened my eyes into what the internet and social media can actually do for us, clarify our thinking, improve our memories, and how by the creation of the internet we now write more than we would ever expect. Throughout my life growing up in this generation I have always been told that I was going to have eye issues from staring at a screen, or not be able to communicate because we only communicate through our phones, but by reading Thompson’s argument I can now confidently backfire some research and statistical data that the internet and social media are actually helping this generation and even the others rather than hurting.

Most of the time when people talk about the internet or social media they say its unnecessary, its bad for our brains, or is taking over our lives. Clive Thompson on the other hand has a slightly different opinion as he writes in his book, “Smarter Than You Think” written in 2013. He introduces to us that writing on the internet can help clarify our thinking, it has vastly increased and improved writing, and writing for an audience has great benefits.

The first of Thompsons many claims in “Public Thinking” is that writing has drastically increased and improved from using the internet. He explains that before we had social media and the internet most people focused on reading rather than writing. He supports this with an anecdote about his mother as he ask’s her how much she has written total in the past year. She responded to him with “I sign my name on checks or make lists- thats it.” (50) Proving that since the older age tends to use technology and social media less they do not write nearly as much as the younger generations do. An additional example he gives to backup his claim is all the different statistics of how much we use the internet and social media “we compose 154 billion emails, more than 500 million tweets on Twitter….” (46-47). On average per day these numbers are outrageous, proving that the internet has given us a way to write, express our feelings, and contact each other. Without the technology we have and the internet, we would not write as much as we do in our everyday lives.

As you read Thompsons “Public Thinking” you may find yourself agreeing with what he is saying or believing his story. This may be because you have the same position as him on these matters or it may be because he is using one of his major strengths, his credible evidence. Throughout Thompsons article he uses various types of evidence with authoritative credibility or connectable stories to back up his arguments in forms of examples or statistics. For example, when he speaks upon the audience effect, after explaining it he follows it up with results from an experiment done by Vanderbilt University on small children, and also another experiment with college students. By providing both of these experiments both with younger and older students, it gives us a reason to believe it is true and credible. Another example is that he provides an incredible amount of statistics in the beginning of his article, which starts his argument off strong drawing his readers in to believe and help take his side on his argument. Without his credible examples, evidence, and statistics it would be harder to agree with him, believe his stories or claims and also his argument would not be as strong as it is.

1. Thompsons ideas in “Public Thinking” relate to my everyday life because I am always on my phone, on social media, writing on this blog for homework, or texting. It relates to these things because in his article he talks about how much writing happens everyday but how actual writing has slowly died down. The examples he used about his mother never writing more than a paragraph for the past year shocked me because I never had realized unless your going to school, or writing on social media, we really never do write things. Everything is electronic and shorter now a days as he says “You could probably take all the prose she’s generated since she left high school in 1952 and fit it in to a single folder.”
2. I believe Thompsons main argument in his article is that there are many different benefits to online writing, and that online writing has become the foundation of everyday life. We use it almost everyday and we should utilize it to the best of our ability.
3. I believe Thompson’s three main claims are that writing is a way of clarifying our thoughts by expressing our feelings, once thinking is public connections take over, and that technology has led people to write more. The first claim that writing is a way of clarifying our thoughts, Thompson says, “by putting half- formed thought on a page, we externalize them and are able to evaluate them much more objectively.” What he means by this is that by putting out thoughts down on a piece of paper we can actually visualize and think about what we wrote rather than just having a thought in our head, that eventually disappears. The next main claim is that once thinking is public connections take over. Thompson expresses this by saying “the ability of anyone to link to anyone else- the Internet is a connection making machine.” What he mens is that if we made our thoughts public, or wrote them we would make lot of connections. The #1 way to make connections is by publicly thinking. The last claim he states is that technology has led people to write more. He uses the example of his mother who said she had rarely written anything other than sign checks or make lists. This is true because since the older age onset have social media or communicate technologically, then they rarely write.
4. Thompson discusses Rebuttals on page 57 and 59. On page 57 he talks about the other countries who don’t have free speech such as China. He was shocked when he visited because he was told that it “was startling enough just to suddenly be writing, in public, about the minutiae of their everyday lives…” The believed that by creating audiences was a key part of the reform process. On page 59 he brings up Ogburn and Thomas’ view that “it was because our ideas are, in a crucial way, partly products of our environment”. What they meant by this is that what we think about is based upon what we involve ourselves in, what we hang around, and how were raised. Another rebuttal he discusses is that

I thought Thompsons “Public Thinking” was interesting, I never realized that so many people are writing in a day or how many people use the internet in the form of writing. I could connect with this article because specifically through our class we are contributing to these statistics as we speak.

Thompsons main claims seemed to be that reading has become more popular than writing as reading is being more pushed to students. He gives examples on how writing helps us “evaluate”, “helps clarify”, “the effort of communicating to someone else forces you to think more precisely, make deeper connections, and learn more”. I never knew these things about writing and know that I know this I am start writing more.

I thought his argument was very intriguing, I have never herd of this research found about animals and didn’t know so many animals were just like us. I found the pig part the most interesting part, since growing up with pigs since 7th grade I never knew they get lonely.

One of Rilfkins main claims is that many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we had ever imagines Rilfkin asserts that by providing many different studies done on different animals showing their similarities. According to Rilfkin, they feel pain, suffer, affection, and even love. For example, Rilfkin states that “they crave affection and are easily depressed if isolates or denied playtime from each other” spelling upon pigs. What he means by this is that pigs get just as lonely as we do and we should treat them like we do humans and give them attention. In other words, animals deserve as much time and treatment as we treat humans. Another one of Rilfkins main claims is other funding sources have fueled the growing field of study into animal emotions and cognitive abilities. Rilfkin asserts that inserting many studies done to test different aspects of animals. According to Rilfkin, animals have conceptual abilities as well. For example, Rilfkin states that two crows were able to choose between a curved and straight wire to get meat out of a tube. What he means by this is that animals can make a cognitive decision just as humans can.

The main types of evidence Rilfkin uses are statistical data, and research results. He bases his argument mostly off of research, which is effective because having this authority creates a stronger and more effective stance. Two strategies he uses to persuade are pathos and authorities. He uses pathos by using animals because everyone loves animals so we can feel for them, and also he uses high authorities like college professors, and big names companies to use for his examples. Parry’s main argument in his article is that if branding is done right it could have major benefits. I thought this article was very interesting because I had never heard of “branding”, it is always interesting learning about things that effect you almost every single day and you didn’t even notice

Kristof uses rebuttals in “Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?” in paragraph 8 and 1. He says “I understand shooting is fun!” and “Why can’t we regulate guns as seriously as we do cars?” Using this question most importantly opens the eyes of the reader and gives a way to connect. Rebuttals in this case can be effective because it proves that they consider both of the sides of the argument, it shows that there are other opinions that people may have, and it proves strong points that may oppose their side.

In Rifkin’s article “A Change of Heart about Animals” in paragraph 10 it states “Some Philosophers and animal behaviorists have long argued that other animals are not capable of self awareness because they lack a sense of individualism.” He also uses Rebuttals in paragraph 15 in question form. Such as “So what does all of the portend for the way we treat our fellow creature?” and “What about fox hunting in the English countryside, bull fighting in Spain?” Rebuttals are effective in persuading because when the author answers these questions it gives the reader the opportunity to believe the author is credible. Also rebuttals are mostly used on controversial topics to address both sides.

Kristof “Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?”

1. The overall argument in Kristof’s article is that we need to regulate guns like we regulate cars.
2. Some of the main claims Kristof uses is that we should limit gun purchases to one a month, and create a background check for buyers.
3. He uses claims about facts/ evidence, comparison claims, proposal claims/ claims to action, and claims about causes and consequences.
4. The main types of evidence Kristof uses is statistical data, examples, stories, and analogies. They are somewhat persuasive because they prove that the evidence is reliable, and some people can connect with it.
5. Two strategies Kristof uses to persuade his audience are pathos because he is trying to emotionally connect with the audience by speaking towards children safety, and another strategy is
6. I think this text could be very effective, the analogy Kristof uses comparing guns and cars makes a lot of sense. Saying that we follow all these strict laws and rules to drive a car, comparing that people are alive today due to some auto regulations really opens the readers eyes that some people involved in the recent school shootings could still be alive living with their families.

Kristof “Some Inconvenient Gun Facts for Liberals”

1. The argument Kristof is making in this article is that we need a new strategy, an approach that treats guns as we do cars, taking steps to making them safer.
2. Some of Kristof’s main claims are that we need to keep guns away from high risk individuals, prohibiting people who have a restraining order, and we need to be smarter about the laws we make about guns.
3. He uses different kinds of claims such as, claims about facts/ existence,  and proposal claims/ calls to action.
4. The main types of evidence he uses are factual, statistical, and textual. They are somewhat persuasive because they show that the evidence can be trusted but it is hard to connect with.
5. Two strategies Kristof uses are ethos because he provides tons of credible information, and the way they organized the article is very well structured by providing evidence then stating his argument and claims.
6. My response to this article is not as impactful as the first one. I related with the other article because he triggered more of my feelings and I connected with it more. This article was more based off of facts and didn’t allow me to connect or persuade me.

Hi my name is Sydney George and I am from San Diego, CA. I am majoring in Chemistry in hopes to go to graduate school at UC Davis for Forensic Science. Some of the things I do in my free time is listen to music, hang with friends and family, go to concerts, and study. Some fun facts about me are that I’ve raised pigs and cows since 7th grade, I’m Hawaiian, my favorite food is sandwiches and I love to adventure!!