Had the course based off of “Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview” been offered here at Rutgers, I can confidently say that I, unfortunately, know more than a handful of people who would be very eager to take it. Robert Lantham hit the nail on the head with his description of todays generation. I do not frequent the social media as much as the majority of people my age, only because I don’t care to share my everyday life with a bunch of people who probably don’t care about what I’m doing on a daily basis. I use Facebook to interact with my close friends and family, never to broadcast to the whole world what my complaints of the morning are. But, I do know many people that do.
Robert Lantham’s “Lost Generation” reference should not be taken lightly, by those who understand it. The “Lost Generation” refers to the men of our country who struggled to mentally get it together after coming back from World War 1. These men have a valid reason to feel lost in the world after fighting one of the ugliest wars to have ever occurred. The people of our generation(of course, with the obvious exceptions), do not have any reason to be lost in this world, except for the fact that many of us are preoccupied with things such as worrying what insignificant people think about us, than we are with trying to steer our lives in a productive direction.
Many posts on the internet, as Lantham describes, “glimmer with a complete lack of forethought.” Why do people insist on sharing with the social media that the person sitting next to them on the bus sneezed 15 times? Many social media posts are formed with the intentions of sharing ones burdens. I will not say all because there are people on the internet who share relevant information, whether it be regarding themselves or current issues of the world. But, there are an extraordinary amount of people who I believe, share their thoughts on social media solely for the purpose of having a status.
There are some key points throughout this syllabus that caught my eye. In the list of prerequisites, I noticed that ‘book skimming’ was listed. I have been told by a teacher that skimming is a skill students should try to acquire. While it does seem logical and beneficial from the students behalf, the task is much easier said than done. “…the print medium is, um, boring…”. This point I personally disagree with; of course technology has taken a huge step in replacing paper print, but there is still a significant amount of people in this world that prefer a book over a kindle. I do agree with Lantham’s argument that there are people in this world that are against paper print in hopes of saving the environment. With global warming being a huge issue, everyone is suddenly an environmentalist. This is an argument that all people living green would, and do, definitely make.
With online classes being more popular now than ever, and the internet being the backbone of many classes, I am not surprised to see Lantham suggest unnecessary attendance. The satire behind this Internet-Age syllabus really opens ones eyes to the realities of our world. Technology gives us uncountable opportunities with constant access to information all at the palm of our hands. Some people take advantage of this in different ways than others. Will this class one day exist in our world? At the rate we are going, possibly, but let’s hope not.
RU Creative Blogging FA14 
Interesting take on the reading. I agree with your point regarding how some people overuse social media to share their problems with the world. Although, I do think there’s also a large number of people who use it in a positive way too.
My favorite line was, “Students will learn inside knowledge about the industry—getting published, getting paid, dealing with agents and editors—and assess why all the aforementioned are no longer applicable in the postprint, post-reading age.” Just goes to show how rapidly things are changing thanks to technology. I think getting published is still possible thanks to e-books and the fact that paperback books aren’t exactly dead (at least not yet, anyway).
Also, the idea that bloggers can’t get paid, as implied in the syllabus, is false. I’m a blogging intern for a local technology company where I actually do get paid for the time I spend blogging on their work. The same goes for social media updates tracing back to the company’s online presence. The modern world of blogging and social networking actually does open doors, even if it seems like it’s closing others.
Overall, I think the satirical writing rings true but of course, is satire, so it is the truth except somewhat exaggerated. Perhaps more people are writing for free with platforms like WordPress.. I’m one of them! But on the other hand, I write for another blog on WordPress that does make money. It all depends.
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As I mentioned in class today, I also noticed the the reference to the “Lost Generation”, but from a psychological perspective. Psychologists tend to define the lost generation as a group that suffered from mental trauma and could not connect with the rest of the world in a meaningful manner. That said, many studies about social media show that it is frequently the cause of depression or the means by which a depressed person hides their condition. Often, people who commit suicide seem to be the “happiest of people” from the outside. They’re profiles are brimming with happy posts and inspiring quotes. Unless a friend were to spend time with that person face-to-face, no one would know that he or she is depressed.
Here’s a link to a quite dramatized, but nonetheless true, video about how people tend to mask their “real crappy lives” on social media.
You also mentioned in class that you prefer the print medium over digital. I’m actually one of those people who does everything on the computer. This is because I am a forgetful packrat – I like to keep all the papers given to me, but tend to lose or forget them frequently. I make heavy use of typing my notes, typing my assignments in an app as opposed to a paper planner. Technology is, after all, a main component of my personal blog. How is this relevant to the topic? Lantham’s syllabus and your review of it seem to believe that the paper medium is dying, and that this death is a terrible loss. I disagree, I believe it’s just being molded into a digitized paper. I would love to take hand written notes, and if I had one of those fancy tablets in which I could use a fancy stylus to hand write nice notes that stay on a computer, I certainly would. In the future, when tablets and such things are more affordable and prevalent on society, paper will be almost dead, but the act of writing, creatively expressing oneself in the “digital paper” medium will still exist in it’s digital stylus written analogue.
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Interesting point on the skim reading! Speaking from experience, skimming a reading doesn’t help grasp the actual content at all. When I was about 13 my parents enrolled me into a “faster reading” course here at Rutgers during the summer. Basically the class was intended to help me read even faster at a young age. I didn’t understand why I needed to learn to read faster because to me that wasn’t absorbing the actual content of the literature, but I took the class. I hated it. I couldn’t get past the idea that a teacher was encouraging such a class. I’m sure reading fast benefits people in completing work, but do they actually comprehend the material? I didn’t.
I agree that technology is almost like a crutch to society. When someone doesn’t know the answer to something the almost immediate response is to look it up on google. This is done rather than picking up a book to research the answer through reading. Technology is always there to provide quick answers. We can literally google a question to homework and receive an answer in seconds. It takes away from the intellectual stimulation of physically finding an answer to then understand homework or assignments better. The sad unfortunate truth is that technology is only advancing therefore who knows when society will be in 10 years – with even more technology.
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I really find your post enjoying and insightful. I totally agree that a handful of my friends would love to take the course “Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview” too. I have a Facebook and I barely use my Facebook. I most likely will not post a status unless I have to spread the word for my sorority or there is an emergency in my family or life. I’m actually glad that you clarified Robert Lantham’s “Lost Generation” reference because I did not get that. Although I do agree with all your points, I believe that technology is actually really beneficial at times. For example, through Google Docs people are allowed to share and edit each others’ input. This allows people to interact with each other, bringing up new ideas. It’s faster and easier. Because of a tablet or even a smartphone, people are now able to study while they are on a bus or a subway. Of course, I believe that most people waste their time surfing the web or playing games others are productive and use technology to utilize every second of their time. Your post was really funny and I can totally agree. For example, the new app called yik yak is so stupid and if we found out the number of people wasting their times I know it would be appalling.
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Hey Darlene! You bring up quite a few interesting points. The title of your post immediately grabs my intention. If you really think about it, yes we are all slaves to the internet. In today’s day and age people just always seem to be so locked to whatever is popular on the internet these days whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Although I do use facebook, I see exactly where you are coming from with the whole “Why do people insist on sharing with the social media that the person sitting next to them on the bus sneezed 15 times?” Honestly, most of the time people don’t really care about these kind of posts but you have to wonder what this means to us as a society. People just feel like they are required to keep others updated and stuff just because that’s what everybody else is doing and therefore we get bogus posts/tweets like these that “lack forethought”. As for your points on technology and school regarding books and classes. I feel for Ebooks it’s all preference, some people just enjoy being able to access almost any book that they want at a given time and just buy it on the spot and stuff like that. However, as for classes with the whole “unecessary attendance” I feel that online classes and regular classes have a huge difference in atmosphere. In fact one of my teachers used a concept similar to this known as the flipped classroom where students would read up and watch videos of lectures of the concepts online at home. Then we would come into class to do practice problems therefore reversing the standard in class lectures and practice problems at home ideal. I for one did not think this was a very effective approach as it’s difficult to get a feel for a new concept when you don’t have someone introducing it to you live with a real atmosphere with on the spot questions and peers around you. It could all just be preference but I also do hope our world never comes to those kind of “unecessary attendace” classes
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I agree with you that this class could at some point become a reality if our culture continues on the way it is going. As an English major it is kind of a terrifying thought that mediums such as poetry, short stories, novels, and the like are all falling away to make space for the new mediums that are mentioned in the syllabus. I think that a main point of the syllabus and your reading of it is that physical literature and content in general are still important even if they are more “difficult.” I like and agree with your appreciation of the physical over the digital. I think that not many people in our generation have that appreciation for the physical and it is that lack of appreciation that we are seeing satirical commentary such as this one. I also think that because of our generation’s lack of appreciation we are now seeing things like Facebook posts about people sneezing 15 times on the bus, which I thought was very funny by the way. What is valued now is mass over material, which I think you did a good job of showing by quoting the syllabus about making tweets glimmer. Great job I loved reading your post.
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Hey, Darlene! Great response. You bring up some really good points in the reading.
One in particular was mentioning that people “share their thoughts on social media solely for the purpose of having a status.” I definitely agree with you. I know plenty of people that really have no business in sharing the breakfast they just had. This particularly reminds me of the #ootd (outfit of the day) tag, used more commonly on Instagram. You used to have to see people in person in order to see what they were wearing. Now, you just have to open Snapchat. That logic further ties in with the reading.
I agree with everything Lantham is saying in his article as well as everything you have mentioning in your response. I do feel that the use of satire, while eye opening to readers, seems a bit close minded to the “real realities” of 21st century technology. I personally believe a lot of the problems with social media is the moral debates people have of it. I know Lantham was not serious in writing the syllabus and you said you hoped this class would not be available in the near future. But I can’t help but think that this class (or at least a variation of it) would be useful to many people. A class like this could be used by older generations, which I’m sure would be plenty helpful. Lantham makes excellent points, but he’s obviously over exaggerates many uses of technology. Had his article been a non-satirical syllabus about how to properly handle social media, the reading would make me (and maybe our generation in general) feel less to blame. But “Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era” is bit of a dramatic way of putting it.
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Hey Darlene, I agree with everyone about how interesting some of your viewpoints are and defiantly agree with some. I like how you mention how people use their social medias to broadcast their whole world. With that said, I do know people that cannot go a day without posting something either on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. It goes along with what you state in your post about people posting because they feel like they have to. Technology has become a way of living and now it seems like we cannot get away from it. It could be the best thing that happen to humans or the worst thing that has happen. What I’m referring to how people use the Internet. Throughout the world we see individuals making a living or an extra income just by them having a blog or knowing how to advertise throughout the Internet. As you stated in your last paragraph “Some people take advantage of this in different ways than others.” The Internet could make you the most productive person or the laziest in the world! In the end, each person has a choice-take advantage of the resources that are there to make you a successful person or stay the same and stay ignorant. The path is your choice.
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I really like that you commented on Robert Lantham’s use of “Lost Generation”. However, I would like to disagree with your statement that people of this generation have no reason to be “lost” and what they feel is not comparable to the soldiers of WWI. I think that the social media has consumed this generation and people are always using their social media accounts to present themselves a certain way to maintain a certain status. But at the same time, many people use these accounts to mask how they really feel. They may feel out of place and alone but they pretend to be a certain way when they are on the internet. Of course comparing the traumatic experience of war to the solitude people experience today seems witless. However, the solitude that some people feel is very real and shouldn’t be considered invalid. There are many instances in which people have committed suicide because of something someone said about them over the internet or because they felt left out after seeing the profiles of their friends or other people they knew. Unfortunately, technology and social media especially has consumed this generation and probably will consume every generation from here on out. But I agree with your main point that the internet changed from a useful tool into a medium that people use to post pointless things and I really hope this changes.
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Hi, Like you said internet classes are becoming really popular and i personally feel it’s good that we have courses we can take over internet. I took online physics I in fall semester last year. And i have to say i really enjoyed it, because he put videos of him solving problems (just like khan academy) and i was able to pause after every 30 seconds he does something and try to understand what he saying or why did he use that formula. And until i didn’t get it i wouldn’t go forward. That’s why i would prefer online classes. Just like a coin has two sides, putting classes also comes with some consequences. It will put lots of teacher out of job. Also students won’t be able to collaborate and enjoy the importance of team work also if student has any questions he has to wait till the instructor email him back.
I agree with you on people making useless posts on Facebook. I think the reason for that is people don’t have anything to do so they use Facebook to get their social life going. They feel that Facebook is where one can show that they have many friends and by putting many posts and get lots of likes they’re the coolest kids. But they don’t know that Facebook is just for communicating and staying in touch for your long distance friends. That’s the reason i use Facebook.
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Hi Darlene!
I was really impressed by the point you made in your blog post about the “Lost Generation”. I would’ve never made that connection even after reading the article a few times. It’s interesting, that even in a parody, the author thinks it’s okay to connect our generation to those that faced struggles post World War 1. Although it’s a parody, I do find that a bit distasteful.
I also do agree with you when you say that people share thoughts “for the purpose of having a status”. I think that even though social media is used for a variety of different purposes, there are ways to really get messages across and use it effectively. It does bother me when people post about their neighbor’s pointless actions or information that really has no value.
The question that you leave readers with at the end is interesting, sad and unfortunately very true. As much as we want to believe something like this will not exist in the world, I think you’re right. There’s a good possibility that it will. Even just this blogging class is a reflection of where the industry and where academic classes are going. I obviously cannot say whether or not this class was available ten years ago, but I think if it were, it wouldn’t have been completely full like it is this semester.
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Hey Darlene your critical response was definitely an interesting perspective. I can’t say I fully agree with everything that you said. I agree that a lot of people have taken these social mediums and taken it to different extremes. However, I don’t see social media as such a negative. Social Media has opened doors for mass communication and displaying information, which I can see you would agree to. As for the “insignificant people” that’s up for one’s own personal preference. Someone sneezing 15 times on the bus is information that really doesn’t benefit anyone, but I don’t think you can label that as pointless and meaningless. From that one post you see the inside of that persons mind, or you could see social media as an outlet for some of these people. Yes it may seem like attention seeking and excessive and even annoying, but it is also harmless and doesn’t endanger anyone. There’s also freedom to block these updates from specific people if it gets to the point of being annoying. Regardless this is a part of society and modern living you can see it as a negative or a positive, but we need to live in it and constantly adjusting.
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Hey Darlene! Reading your response to the article was interesting. Most of the people I know have social networks and engage in them quite often. I enjoy social networks too, so to read how you feel about social networks was different. I did not completely agree with everything that you wrote about but I must say that you made a great point when you referred to “Lost Generation”. I believe that just because a person may be interested in social media and technology does no mean that he or she is lost in the world. Although there are plenty of people that are. There are many successful individuals that partake in such activities and are doing just fine. Everyone is different and enjoys to do different things. To you it may seem as though the people are “insignificant” but we do choose who to interact with on social media so the people who we “follow” or “befriend” are relevant most of the time. I agree with you that some people misuse technology but others use it to their advantages. Technology has helped us come a very long way and we are now able to do so much more than before. Let us hope that technology will be used in more positive ways than negative in the near future.
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After reading your response to the article, it got me thinking about how I feel and where I stand when it comes to social media While it is fun and entertaining, I personally realize that there needs to be a balance found for our use of it. I see that the world is changing and technology is in everyday life, but things others post on social media definitely has me questioning our generation, and I can see ourselves as “lost.” It’s ridiculous that 21st century hanging out consists of friends sitting in a room on either a group chat or Instagram, for example, and showing each other things rather than learning about each other. I always wonder what happened to playing games and getting into interesting conversations and debate. Although I use social media, one thing I do not do with my friends is just sit around only on our technology. We get to know one another which is why I can confidently talk about my friendships with others. The fact that a course like this could be offered, and that would be the only course some would Ace is crazy and I think we definitely need to learn how to monitor our technology use.
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To begin, I agree with your gripe about over-sharing on social media. I see it happening quite often and I just don’t understand the necessity of it. I feel like, very frequently, people seek the validation of others – of strangers – rather than hearing the occasional hard truth. It is so easy to seem one way online and lead an entirely different life. I’m sure most of us have seen the show Catfish, and those are extreme examples. People are never necessarily their real selves on social media – whether it’s a cryptic Tweet, happy status when they’re actually sad, or a photo filter. A user can be anyone they want to be, which I see as both a positive and negative.
While the syllabus is titled regarding the “Internet-Age,” the people described are hardly using the Internet and all its resources to its fullest potential. This has become the Social Media Age.
I personally do not believe Kindles or e-readers will ever truly replace books. Even if it is just for a novelty factor, I don’t think (at least in this lifetime) that they’ll truly disappear. People are rarely using their mobile devices for reading, rather, they’re posting something on social media as I mentioned prior.
There is more to education and a career than 140 characters.
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