Online Technology

Some of these critics tell us that contrary to popular belief, "far from making us smarter, online technologies are actually making us dumber." (Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. 2006, 168) On the other hand, there are people who challenge this school of thought; they bring up the point that students are able to find a target audience and tweak their writing to appeal to their directed audience because of the use of social media. This whole time the author's advice or opinion on the use of technology had not been mentioned. The information and view points were told to explain the idea from a completely objective stand point. That is however, until the very last paragraphs of this chapter. Graff and Birkenstein give their own view in reference to their combined 70 years of teaching, they do not agree with either side of the argument.
The authors of They Say I Say do not think that the use of social media has made writer more adept to reach audiences nor do they believe that the use of technology makes it challenging to sustain a big idea, as this was happening long before the Internet was involved in writing.
The authors say that as they see it, "online technologies only recycle any difficulties writers had reaching audiences; if any writer has trouble reaching audiences in one medium, he or she will have it in another." (Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. 2006, 170-171) After explaining several different view points on the topic of technology and its effects, Graff and Birkenstein then ask the reader for their opinion. It then becomes apparent as to why the chapter was so objective and did not support any one side too heavily. The authors wish for us to form our own opinion on the effects of technology. They wish for us to answer questions like, does technology make it easier to join conversations, do they help or hurt writing, in order to guide our response and formulate our
opinion.