The New Literacy Rhetorical Analysis

In the article “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson, he argues alongside with Stanford University professor Andrea Lunsford that technology, specifically social media, is improving students’ writing ability. There is a great deal of debate when judging social media and how it has affected this generation for the better or worse. According to Thompson, Lunsford indicates that technology is motivating and improving the writing capability of our peers today. Personally, I disagree with Thompson’s positive outlook on the effect social media has on students’ writing capability and believe that social media has destroyed and continues to destroy students’ proper writing technique.
Thompson’s argument is that social media today is cultivating our
As nearly every professor will tell you, “Once you write it online, it is there forever.” As an example, when you apply for a job, potential employers will arrange a background check not only for criminal history, but also your online social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Our generation has had many of these accounts for years, starting with Myspace, where they have written comments that are inappropriate or vulgar. Lunsford found that students were very adaptive when writing for a particular audience and they were able to get their points across to a wide varity of spectators. Even if this may be true, these students cannot change what they have written previously and they will have to live with the bad writing decisions they made in their pasts. There have been times that I have seen people post their thoughts on social media and later go back and delete what they posted. Once it is out on the internet though, it is free game for others to copy or screenshot and reveal it again if they desire. I have seen this become a very big issue for people that post something when their emotions are running high and say something they later