Secondly, Baron says that people frequently ask if email, texting and IMing are destroying the english language, killing the art of conversation and rupturing social relationships. I have mixed feelings about this, especially since presumably Baron is old enough that he did not have a computer growing up and possible not even in college. Because of this, he spends an extensive amount of time discussing how computers are changing writing by making everyone an author and citing etiquette for email, IM and blogging. For me, one of the big things about blogging is that there isn't really any etiquette for it. Blogs are public, but the person writing them can write whatever they want. I think that's the power of the online world as well as wikis like wikipedia and urban dictionary. Lots of people can share their views for free. If you don't agree with someone's view, you can write your own blog about it. The internet opens up the world to so many different views and so much more information than books because it's so much faster and there's so much more room in it.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Baron 7-12
There were a few interesting points in the second half of Baron. First was the idea that signatures have value, but why? Really it's just someone's writing on paper. Having their signature doesn't mean that you've met that person or that you know them. He points out how a note from a friend has no value. This makes me think about why we put value on the things we do. A grocery list is trash, but a card from someone special might be a keepsake. Email and texting doesn't really work like that. Almost all texts or emails are trash. Most people empty their texts frequently and wouldn't think of keeping one, no matter who it's from. Online communication saves paper and also changes how we think of communication. Written communication is becoming rarer and rarer, and may eventually disappear completely, but probably not for a long time. However, I think it is likely that reference books like encyclopedias and dictionaries will disappear relatively quickly because it's much easier to use the types of searches that are available online to find the type of information you're usually looking for in a reference book.
Secondly, Baron says that people frequently ask if email, texting and IMing are destroying the english language, killing the art of conversation and rupturing social relationships. I have mixed feelings about this, especially since presumably Baron is old enough that he did not have a computer growing up and possible not even in college. Because of this, he spends an extensive amount of time discussing how computers are changing writing by making everyone an author and citing etiquette for email, IM and blogging. For me, one of the big things about blogging is that there isn't really any etiquette for it. Blogs are public, but the person writing them can write whatever they want. I think that's the power of the online world as well as wikis like wikipedia and urban dictionary. Lots of people can share their views for free. If you don't agree with someone's view, you can write your own blog about it. The internet opens up the world to so many different views and so much more information than books because it's so much faster and there's so much more room in it.
Secondly, Baron says that people frequently ask if email, texting and IMing are destroying the english language, killing the art of conversation and rupturing social relationships. I have mixed feelings about this, especially since presumably Baron is old enough that he did not have a computer growing up and possible not even in college. Because of this, he spends an extensive amount of time discussing how computers are changing writing by making everyone an author and citing etiquette for email, IM and blogging. For me, one of the big things about blogging is that there isn't really any etiquette for it. Blogs are public, but the person writing them can write whatever they want. I think that's the power of the online world as well as wikis like wikipedia and urban dictionary. Lots of people can share their views for free. If you don't agree with someone's view, you can write your own blog about it. The internet opens up the world to so many different views and so much more information than books because it's so much faster and there's so much more room in it.
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