New writing

There has been a claim recently heard that new kinds of technologies change the way we write. This seems inevitably to be the case. There is a long history, since the ancients, of our technologies of writing affecting the content of that writing. When people first started writing on cave walls, no doubt there were complaints about how much was lost in the move from dirt floors.

As in the natural backlash that accompanies the hyping of each new technology, there is now concern that Twitter and its kin will spell the end to literacy and a descent into frivolity. It would be easier to place credence in these claims if we had not heard them so many times before. The telegraph, with its Twitteresque focus on brevity, led to the most extreme sorts of claims–both utopian and dystopian. In the end, the way we write will not be any more affected by Twitter, texting, or blogging, than it was by the telegraph or movable type. But that’s not to say that it will remain unchanged.

Print Revolution

Of course, movable type had tremendous social effects. It moved written language closer to spoken language, and reinforced existing European languages as vulgate versions of the bible and of other books were widely published. It changed the style of discourse as well. In particular, it was–for the first time–possible to cite other books, because there were exact duplicates of those books spread across the continent. A strong determinist view would claim that this one writing technology led to the Enlightenment, science, and modernity.

And, no doubt, there are those who would say that this was a bad thing, that we would have been better off with books and writing in the hands of the few. Many of these steps have moved the act of writing into more and more hands, and with each step it has become less expensive (some would say cheapened) and less sacred (some might say more profane). The concern is that with new forms of writing and the ease with which they are produced, all discourse will be reduced to graffiti.

IDK my BFF Jill

There was a string of such concerns when texting slowly made its way into the mainstream in the US, mainly among teens. Would teenagers be able to write? Would they create business letters with “u” for you, or other seemingly inane abbreviations? Worse yet, would we all start doing this, leading to the fall of (English language) civilization? That particular panic calmed down only long enough for Twitter to come along. The language police were out in full force, decrying the damage this was doing to our literate brains. Think of the children!

In fact, it turns out that texting is related to improved literacy among 10- to 12-year-olds. The short-cuts we take in order to fit into 140 characters actually follow rules that have deep roots in the English language. In Txtng: the Gr8 Db8, linguist David Crystal suggests the ludic use of text on mobile phones provides a particularly effective way of learning about language. As with other technologies, the potential for radical damage has been vastly overstated.

And like other technologies, the unintended consequences are yet to be felt. I suspect that other technologies–particularly the ability of machines to write and read text–will cause far deeper changes in our language than a 140 character limit ever will.

Style-switching

Let me begin by saying that, in fact, I have received emails with “u” for “you.” Not just from undergrads, but from graduate students. I was really disappointed by this. If they had IMed me with that replacement, I would have been less concerned, but something deep inside me finds these kinds of abbreviations in an email to be indecorous. There are certain style and diction expectations in an email, just as there are in an academic paper, a personal note, a letter to the editor, and a newspaper article. In none of those is it appropriate to write “omg” but in an IM, text, or LOLcat image, it is perfectly acceptable. (Actually LOLcat is an interesting counter-example. I’ve yet to see frightened letters to the editor about the fact that LOLspeech is hurting the youth. This despite a project to translate the entire bible into LOL.)

The issue, then, is that good writing looks different in different contexts. Anyone who has seen their favorite book butchered in movie form can tell you that. Same message–sometimes even the same writer–but with drastically different outcomes. The ability to pick the right style and diction for a particular context is a vital piece of what it is to be literate. As Bronwyn Williams is quoted as saying in this Tech Review article:

In coming years literacy will mean knowing how to choose between print, image, video, sound, and all the potential combinations they could create to make a particular point with a specific audience. What will not change is the necessity of an individual to be able to find a purpose, correctly analyze an audience, and communicate to that audience with information and in a tone that audience will find persuasive, engaging, and intelligent.

I live in an area where it’s not strange to have a waitress call me papi, and kids routinely switch languages to plead for a toy when the first one doesn’t work. There are people who argue that multilingualism is a bad thing, and codeswitching is diluting the purity of our language. Of course, English is already a bit of a mutt, constantly borrowing from different linguistic traditions throughout its history. Of course, all languages do this, but English does it more. It’s nearly impossible to imagine the equivalent of the Académie française for a language like ours, one that relishes neologisms and borrowed terms. Maybe because these kinds of cultural interminglings are so common in New York, this strikes me as a cosmopolitan literacy, and as an advantage.

Likewise, when I have to explain to someone over IM what brb, afaik, or afk mean, I have a fleeting “where has this person been” moment. It’s not particularly fair, I know, but it marks them as someone outside the technical circle. In years past, that actually might have been a good thing. After all, being a member of the elite used to mean that you dictated your letters, never touched email, and wouldn’t think of texting someone. This was so entrenched, that the idea that our current president might actually want to carry a Blackberry nearly caused a constitutional crisis. But this is changing. Not only the young and geeky text these days, and not knowing how to doesn’t make you aloof, it makes you out of touch.

Likewise, not being able to write a businesslike letter, memo, or email puts you out of touch, and closes doors to you. Unfortunately, this is a silent killer. This is most strikingly the case in cover letters for employment. Even if someone is vaguely interesting for a job, their resume is quickly “round filed” if the cover letter is not formatted properly, has a typo, or strikes the wrong tone for the context. The test for literacy is someone who is equally adept at writing copy for a popular website, shooting off a short message requesting help from a friend, and writing a clear, precise, academic article without skipping a beat.

Fear & Loathing On Twitter

Should we be afraid of new writing and communication technologies? Absolutely not. But we should definitely think about their use and misuse. It is a mistake to jump on the bandwagon and mindlessly devote yourself to any new technology. Try it, but do so with a critical mind. What is this good for. Why is it better than other options? What contexts is it best suited for?

It used to be that I blogged several times a week on my main blog, but now I often go for weeks without making an entry. Some of that is that I am writing in other spaces (like here!), but a lot of it has to do with using Twitter for a lot of what I did on my blog. There are times when 140 characters is just not enough to say what I want to say, but those times are rare.

My advice is to go for the middle way. Use communication technologies when it is the most appropriate and most effective way of reaching the people you want to persuade. Of course, as I’ve said before, one of the keys to persuading people is to gain and hold their attention, and one of the best ways of doing this is by surprising them. Twitter is relatively virgin territory: there is a lot of room for surprises.

Collaborative Writing