I don't want to agree with Richard Rodriguez. I want to believe that we will continue to expect, to demand, thoughtful, reasoned debate as the genesis of a free society.

But I do agree with him. It's not for lack of information. People know what's going on in Iraq. They understand the ramifications of the crisis in North Korea. They know the perils of a future with no Social Security. They get the impact of a Congressman Mark Foley sex scandal.

And that's not just adults. Teens know of and understand those issues.

They can find the information. What I don't see is the ability to engage in any level of critical or thoughtful discussion about it. Opinions get formed and hardened. There is no probing. There is no exploring. There is no real talk.

All there you hear is polemic debate with no support for the position. "I believe this because it's right."

It's like viewing a beautiful Rocky Mountains lake that is only two inches deep. It's very pretty but way too shallow.

I think we need to make sure that we know, first, how to think critically. That's not an ingrained skill. And, second, we need to know how to communicate those thoughts, verbally -- without resorting to the screamining you see on TV -- and in writing -- without resorting to :) .

Oh, the never-ending generational cycle of hypocrisy. Adults, so eager to criticize and bemoan the “kids these days”, are so self-satisfied in their own delusions. I’m not denying the problems of semi-literacy, mediocre education, and idiotic commercialism, but I am suggesting that just maybe, perhaps, possibly, the finger has been pointed in the wrong direction. Is it the children who have failed the system created by the last generation, or the system that has failed us? Adults, so quick to judge and worry, desperately wondering why, oh why, are the children so dumb, wildly blaming one factor after another, never pausing to consider for a moment the possibility that they may be at fault. A high horse for the generation that ignored the genocide in Rwanda.

At Foothill, we are comfortably removed from the realities of America’s public school system, in an exceptionally helpful and privileged school. Now that I enjoy this wealthy school, it’s painful to look back on my elementary school days in the miserably underfunded Oakland public school system. I had experienced firsthand a failed American education. Today, one in three American high school students drops out. SAT scores are lower than they have been in decades. But not only is education failing across the board, it is brutally unequal. Only half of minority students will ever graduate from high school, and black enrollment rates at UCLA are lower than they were in the 70’s. But of course, for five years now, we’ve had Our Dear Leader’s wildly successful “No Child Left Behind Act”! This wise law keeps children from being Left Behind by putting more emphasis and judgment based on testing and PUNISHING struggling schools instead of HELPING them.

But no, don’t blame them. It’s those kids who have the problem! It’s so easy to blame MTV, rap music, Myspace, Grand Theft Auto, and iPods.

But if you can forgive me for stealing an idea from Fahrenheit 451, it’s not the medium that’s the problem, but the content.

TV and movies make stories and messages accessible to everyone, as opposed to the days when most of our “classics” were written, when only a small, aristocratic elite could enjoy literature.

No matter what people say about it, I still prefer hip-hop to music more recognized in the intellectual circles, partly because I was raised around it, but mostly because I believe that it has the most unexplored potential of any genre of music. Because lyrics and words are so central, it has the ability to convey strong messages, and can even be closer to poetry than most typed of music. The messages found in mainstream rap are negative almost without exception, but that is the flaw of the market’s demand for idiocy and not the flaw of the art form itself. You just have to dig deeper than the shallow surface of artists who make a living by explaining how stupid they are.

The internet may allow us to enjoy our semi-literacy with ease, but it is perhaps the only truly free institution that humanity has ever created. It allows for the people themselves to be completely in control of the media, countering the biases and deceptions of other eras, when information was less accessible. We should value it for what it could be, and not waste it, because the governments of the world, including our own, are slowly gnawing away at that seemingly untouchable freedom. Don’t take it for granted –use the internet for something meaningful before it’s too late.

Myspace doesn’t HAVE to be used for bulletin chains, TV doesn’t HAVE to be used for MTV cribs, and rap doesn’t HAVE to be used for Mike Jones. There’s nothing wrong with being a “screenager” as long as there’s something intelligent on your screen, and if there isn’t, then put it there. (Unless you’ve been left behind by your education… or lack thereof.)

And to sum up this lengthy blog, I say to all the high and mighty judgmental adults who feel devoid of blame for the world they created: “Whatever.”

Those of you who know me, know that I love to rant about our “I want it now” society, pushing everyone to conform to what society tells them to do, say, wear, think, be. However, now you will all see another side of me. I side with Lucas: technology is a virtue, when used for the right reasons. Sure, we live in the “information age.” But is that necessarily as bad as everyone makes it out to be? Isn’t information a good thing? Of course, there are multitudes upon multitudes of information on the Internet, and one cannot possibly digest it all. But who said we need to? Sure, the majority of “screenagers” today throw away their lives by spending time mindlessly looking at Myspace and Internet porn. But, as many of you have said, this is not entirely society’s fault. Today’s mindless conformist drones are partially created out of their own free will, out of their choice to not use their brains, out of their need for attention, out of their comfort with following the crowd. It is also partially the parents’ fault. I can relate to this personally. I look at my parents, who are always very interested in my life, who always help me when I need it, who always support me. Then, I look at my boyfriend’s dad. A single parent, with four kids in his house, at least ten more living somewhere else, a girlfriend with two little children, and another one on the way. I look at how he takes advantage of his low income, signing up for every welfare possible, forcing his children not to get jobs or even move out when they’re 20 so the rent will not increase; getting 15 credit cards, not paying them, and ending up $15,000 in debt; then, at Christmas, taking out $5,000 loans to buy his children’s love through an X-Box, two cell phones per kid, and a big-screen TV. I look at how he is rarely home, between work and spending all his free time at his girlfriend’s apartment, paying attention to her kids while his are left to fend for themselves, with their 20-year-old brother to take care of them. When their dad does come home, he lays around the house after he comes home from work, and expects his children to cook their own dinner, make his bed for him, clean the whole house, and wait on him hand and foot. I compare this parental irresponsibility to the fact that his 20-year-old son has to put himself through college, his 19-year-old daughter is a drug addict, his 15-year-old son is flunking out of school, and his 11-year-old daughter spends all of her time at her friends’ houses, eating their food and using their hospitality, because she sure isn’t getting anything from her father.

(Ok, sorry about my rant on my boyfriend’s dad. I will get to the point now.)

So, is Mr. Rodriguez right? Is our society spiraling downward into a black hole devoid of individual thought and appreciation for literature? Is technology to blame? Personally, I think that Mr. Rodriguez has too much of a black-and-white point of view. Yes, society is pushing us towards conformity and a Fahrenheit 451/Brave New World/1984 world, and creating an anti-literature-that-wastes-your-time-by-giving-you-large-words-to-find-the-definition-for attitude; but there are those who see the truth and ignore society’s constant pressure, those who read what they want to, including classic literature. Yes, technology has caused this societal pressure to increase; but, 1. parents and “screenagers” in general are also to blame, and 2. there are those who (besides the occasional Myspace usage) use technology to fight for what they believe in, look for information that they truly wish to know, and have intellectually stimulating conversations with people in South Africa, providing a more worldly knowledge. Yes, there are those who find The Scarlet Letter to be exceedingly boring and a waste of time. I used to be one of those people: over the summer, all I really wanted was to enjoy my vacation, giving me a cynical perspective on the book. However, after completely digesting it and finding the larger meanings during class, I find my self in love with this book. The figurative language is colorful and descriptive, the symbolism is thought-provoking, and the story is simply amazing. There are those who do not like it because it is so depressing; I, on the contrary, love dark, depressing literature. I enjoy imagining how deeply and truly hurt and tormented the characters must be, and I feel that hardships and obstacles only make a person stronger, as is proven in The Scarlet Letter.

To sum up, I feel that Mr. Rodriguez is wrong when he says “that many of the teenagers who best understand the uses of literacy are sitting in jail.” I, personally, love classic literature and classical music, as well as contemporary literature and alternative music. Not to sound full of myself, but I feel that I am a very well-rounded individual, and that many people in this school and around the world are the same way. However, I feel that if we do not act now and show others the truth about “The Man” and society, that conformity and “lol” will rule the world.

As I sit here in front of my beloved technologies consisting of my computer screen with my email, my cell phone with new text messages from my best friend and my iPod playing some Quietdrive musica (you should really check them out!) I realize just what is wrong with us- kids nowadays.

Having spent the entirety of my Saturday at home, I’ve gotten a lot done: I woke up at 11, I put on my bikini and some tanning oil (I live in Ojai where the sun actually shines), I ate a delicious turkey sandwich my mommy made me, I read a couple pages of Ben Franklin’s book, I did Physio homework and had a homemade dinner from the best cook in the world, my mom. We had a conversation about our days and what we accomplished. My parents have always been very involved in my life every step of the way. I came to find out why kids in our world are dropping out of school, can’t read and leave their defenseless babies in dumpsters. The problem lies in their parents!

I have been fortunate enough to grow up in a large and deeply loving family. We all care about each other and go out of our way to help out. My parents always dropped me off at school in the mornings with a kiss and picked me up with a “How was your day?” They care. My aunts and uncles always asked me about ME. They care. My grandparents spoil me. They care. My older cousins give me advice. They care. It all boils down to this my friends: ATTENTION.

Have you ever stopped to think why regular girls are putting pictures of themselves up on Myspace of their cleavage and their butts? They want attention. Why guys bring guns to school? They never got attention. Guns will get them attention. We are constantly looking for ways to get attention. Whether its on Myspace from a stranger or on our cell phone from our friends. We have the constant need to be needed. Why do you people check for comments on your Myspace page 10 times a day? Why do you text your friends when you’re in a movie theatre during the movie? Why do you get a sudden surge of happiness when you see the “New Picture Comment” message when you log in? Well I’m happy for you at least you get your attention somehow.

The problem lies in the kids who don’t get any attention because their parents are workaholics, their family never cared, and they didn’t have many friends. They have nothing. That’s why they get a website page to put up photos of themselves to get the attention they’ve been lacking. They don’t care about school because their parents don’t care if they are doing well or not. They don’t have any goals because they don’t know anyone who does. So what’s the point? Why stay in school? It’s just the same for them in school or not. Who buys them their cell phones? Who buys them their iPods? Who puts a computer with unlimited Internet access in their rooms? We’re talking severe intellectual decay from adolescence.

I don’t think we should blame the government, the schools, the teachers, or peer pressure. It’s all in the parents’ hands. We need to stop and ask, “How was your day?” and “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s so important. We’re talking about the future of our world.

Is it just me, or does this bring up the quote, “Teenagers, they tink dey know everything” from the Little Mermaid, pop into your head as you think about this?
To me, this is the whole root of the problem. In general, teenagers seem to be misunderstood by their parents or elders because they are no longer the simple-minded children that they used to be. We are but the rebels of the world and strive to be the opposite of what our parents tell us to be. Which, in this case, is reading and thoughtful thinking.
Which brings me to the topic of this post: the ‘black hole’ of the teenage mind that absorbs all logical and deep thinking that we might have possessed otherwise that is drawn from the new technology, or so people think. I think that, to truly state that technology is dissolving the minds of the youth, we would have to know what teenagers in the past were thinking and doing. For all we know, the girls could have just been thinking ‘knit one, pearl two, knit one, pearl two…’ or ‘I wonder what the impact of this scarf will be on my future children? Will it save one’s life from the cold?’ Or possibly, with the young men of old, they might be thinking, ‘seven, eight, nine forks of hay on the stack, starting with another one, two three…’ or ‘what will be the impact on the nutrients of the soil if we continue to grow so much hay in this one area? Will we ever ruin the Earth with our crops?’
To me, there is no way of knowing if technology is making our minds worse or better. Although I have seen a profound number of students say “I do not like to read”. That statement just makes me shudder and look at the person with a befuddled stare. Books hold whole worlds, universes, even! They open up possibilities that you may not have even imagined before. Not to mention the authors who slaved and nurtured the books as they would cherish a child or care for a fallen bird. People put their whole lives, their entire soul into the pages of a book, and to think that someone can just simply say “I do not like to read” is simply unfathomable. But now I have gone off topic.
Technology may, as Richard Rodriguez stated in his essay, have taken away the time and patience of today’s teenagers. If teenagers do not need to think deeply to chat with friends, then they simply don’t. For me, I have not had time to read for my own pleasure these past three weeks, no matter how much my heart has pleaded me to. Homework and school have basically taken up that time that I would normally spend within the pages of a novel. And on a side note, I would rather read a book than watch television any day, even if it is the wordy summer torture that was The Scarlet Letter.
For me, the teenage population is far too extensive to make any assumptions about what we think and why we do the things that we do. Adults simply try to find a simple explanation for our differences, and technology is the excuse for now.
Just remember this: not all teenagers are the same, just as not all adults are the same and not all of the apples in the barrel are the same.

When I think of humans completely dominated by technology, I think of the pathetic, stupid, brain-washed society of Brave New World. They cannot think for themselves, and they are completely programmed to behave just as the government wants them to which limits what they can read and write, which is basically nothing. Personally, I think that the Brave New World society is a little too extreme and that it will probably never happen. I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen, but I just believe that we human beings are stronger than that. Sure, practically every teenager nowadays is a screenager, and probably spends way too much time “chatting” or is on Myspace, but that does not mean that they don’t still have real opinions, true emotions, or good writing abilities. These screenagers must surely have another way too express themselves in an intelligent way since not every teenager can genuinely express themselves through written words.

For instance, I have a very intelligent friend who cannot easily express her opinions through writing, but that does not mean her opinions or thoughts are any less important or intellectual. Personally, I think that the teenagers of today have to get through classes way more challenging just to get into a good college than the last generation had to.

I agree with Kelsie when she said that technological advances have caused higher educational standards for today’s teenagers. Even my own mom, who graduated from UCSB, is surprised at how advanced my writing abilities are after reading one of my essays. However, I am sure that taking honors classes and now AP has helped my writing mature due to this higher standard education teenagers of today are experiencing.

Frankly, after reading everyone else’s blogs, I usually marvel at how intelligently all of my classmates can write. I mean come on Rodriguez! We are all full-fledged screenagers submerged in the digital age, and yet we still have strong intelligent opinions and we can write! I know that there are millions of more teenagers just like us all over the world. In fact, a nation-wide survey proves that most teens enjoy reading, but that 46% don’t have enough time to read for pleasure due to extracurricular activities. This shows that the majority of teenagers do enjoy reading. So who is he to say that most “teenagers who best understand the uses of literacy are sitting in jail”?

So I have to say that I most definitely do disagree with Rodriguez because I believe that screenagers are more intelligent than he has written them out to be. Of course, technology has many bad effects and there are many ways it has demoralized society, but as long as we don’t let ourselves become completely taken over by it, we can learn to focus only on the positive and strive to keep it from taking over our entire personalities, intelligence, and creative abilities. To Rodriguez, all I have to say is that we screenagers will prove you wrong.

omfg he is so krazii 4 assigin 2 much hw lolz
Is the dialogue our society has come to?
God bless America.
We live in a society based on speed, the power to gets things quick, soon, now. Want to send a text message to your friend about the latest gossip? No problem. Watch TV to watch the latest celebrity news? In an instant. One would think the problem stems from the inner connectivity that the world has presented to us. The society we live in today is face paced, and always looking towards to future. It’s easy to look at the status quo, and say America is loosing the appreciation for literature, for thought and it’s solely based as Rodriquez claims on the fact that we as a society are bound together by the information age. However, it is illogical and unreasonable to place to blame solely society; we as human beings have an intrinsic thought, a will decide, the ability to choose whether to communicate, or fall into a world of “lols” and “omfgs”.
It’s simple to blame the lack of literacy in society on the tools that we used in the information age. Rap music, the internet, TV, are all thrown into the same category of “rotting your mind”; I’m sure everyone’s parents here have at least said the phrase at one point in time. During a class discussion we talked about Nathaniel Hawthorne, hating his time, wishing he could go back to the Puritan age where life wasn’t “flat” and there was purpose and meaning. Just because Hawthorne’s masterpiece (yeah I liked the book, you will get over it I’m sure) was well written, filled with lavish thought and detail does it mean other books of the time were? No, most them were probably filled with useless garbage that sold well regardless. Is it any different then it is now? No not really.
Ask any teenager talking down the street if “classical” music is boring (better yet check their myspace) and they will say “Um, I hate classical music so much, I’m going to go listen to ‘Sexy Back’ so whatever bye”. Rodriguez makes this too simple, too black and white. The tools we have at our disposable are not different then those of Hawthorne’s time. Perhaps a tad faster, and bit more electrical but no different. Browse through the internet, there’s more then myspace and face book. Take a look on google; surf the web. There are blogs of people. People who have something to say. Thoughts with meaning, thoughts with emotion. Who knows perhaps the next Hawthorne is somewhere floating in cyber space! Will anyone comment them saying “omg u look so hawt”? Probably not. But do they write anyway? But of course.
TV and music as well seem to have been lumped in with this “lack of thought process” heap. So many social movements have used TV to their advantage: AIDs foundation, breast cancer awareness so and so forth. Polluting our minds? I think not. Hell if you really want the TV to stimulate watch the history channel. Rap music, unfortunately gets an unfair rap (hoho, I do love puns!) as well. Most of it is in fact, complete crap, but everyone once in a while you’ll get a genuine artist, one who has something to say. The next Bach maybe? Of course a bit more gangster.
When all is said and done it’s easy to blame it on the fast paced, “screenager” society we live in, but when it comes down to it, it’s about choice. Will you let yourself be influence by the shallow TV shows, the artists who maybe more popular but have nothing to say, the unnecessary garbage floating online? Rodriguez may have been true that this is a society of “screenagers” but I think it’s time to give the title a better connotation then it has.
As despondent as this blog may have sounded, I know our society isn’t going down the drain. It seems as if we are puppets rather then the puppeteers; we must now work around society to reach an untapped intellectual level. At the same time, we’re in control; we decide what can stimulate us, and what can not. In the end the negative connotation that comes along with being a child of generation x can be changed by you; either having something meaningful to say, or talking with nothing to say at all.

No man thinks higher than I do of literacy it is what gives us intellectual freedom. A freedom that does not consist of multiple acronyms that are sometimes impossible to decode. Yes, it is our generation that is slowly but steadily moving into era describe in novels such as 1984(which should be re-titled to 2007) and also A Brave New World. We must also consider that times are changing and so are the people, and that every generation has there own “thing”. It may be that last year 50% of adults did not read a book but if you asked how many typed over ten thousand words you probably would be looking at figures in the 80% range.

How often is it necessary to read a couple books a year for a job anywhere in the world, the answer not very likely. It is true that in most jobs you have to be able to type up a document of some kind. I know that you are probably thinking that we are talking about teens that use phrases such as “lol, lamo, and stfu” but these things are all training us to become more familiar with word processing and computer technology. Technology is progressive ever so fast that it is impossible for humans to keep up.

Every time you turn around you see the latest TV, computer, or cell phone. The world has become a technological market full of corporate jerks who want you buy there latest fastest product so they can make a quick buck. The world has turned into a place where the media influences us daily even if we don’t want it to. It is inevitable that world will become tangled in a pool of computers.

Richard Rodriguez wrote that the adults of our time our producing semi-literate children. I believe this to be true but not in all cases. It seems that he is focused on a portion of teenagers who create mischief and run crazy through the streets. Maybe he lives in south central. Rodriguez is an adult and does not see what we can see when we are in class and are at school. He seems to focus on stereotypes. I could go head and stereotype him and say he drives a big SUV and spends $60 on gas a week and lives in a big apartment all alone and he enjoys living in his propagandist world. That is what Rodriguez is just another propagandist who is trying to tell us to change our lives for the better. Life is not all about watching TV and reading essays it’s about experiencing new things. So go out there and live your life whatever your life may consist of.

I do agree with Rodriguez about Americans losing there capacity to understand and create language that is dense and structured and I believe a lot of that has to do with one simple phrase; “Time is money”. Maybe that isn’t the best example but if you think about it which would you rather hear: a long eloquent lecture from Mr. Geib where you have to spend just as much effort trying to figure out what he is saying as jotting down what he says on your presidential outline, or him making the lecture short, sweet, and to the point where you know exactly what he is saying and can concentrate wholly on the information? Same thing for a business owner, do you want to hear a six-page report about how you are doing and a three-page report on the future, or do you want to hear that you’re earning or losing more money and what you can do to make more? I also think technology has played a key role in the downfall of literature.

I can understand using “AIM speak” on AIM, but when you use it so much it starts to slip into your everyday writing or typing, like when you type essays or projects on the computer, there is a serious problem there. And it really just annoys me when I’m walking around at school and a here someone say lol, jk, or wtf. For example, I was walking by a table of kids and I heard one say, “Yeah I walked over to the Magic table and no one was there and I was like WTF?” It seriously made me want to stab them in the face. It’s just wrong. I also noticed that at libraries more and more people go to use AIM to talk to their friends or go to use the Internet to get information when they could look in the hundreds of books surrounding them for reliable information.

So I guess the future may demand minds less self-reflective. I also think I am one of the people who Charles is talking about because I like, no I love, sitting in from of a TV or my computer screen rotting my brain away rather than reading a book. TV’s and computers have helped the world in more ways than they have hurt it, but in regards to reading and writing I think computers and TVs pretty much screwed them over because now people type their homework and don’t have to worry about spelling, and most of the time don’t even have to worry about grammar. When I type I don’t capitalize I or the beginning of a word because I know it will do it automatically. I also know it will add in apostrophes so I don’t type those either. It’s ridiculous but it has made things so much easier. I figure it is this way with a lot of Americans and a lot of people in civilized societies. People don’t even have to read a newspaper anymore to get their news. They can simply click a button on a remote control or visit cnn.com and we accept what they tell us without raising a single question most of the time. I think it really is as simple as that.
Ok. I’m done.

Why is that every time people talk about our generation they mention Columbine . . . yeah it was sad but it was almost a decade ago and it was two crazy teens not all of us?
anyway . . .

"The X Generation,” "The MTV Generation,” “the technology age,” Columbine shooting, these are all phrases that define our generation but I disagree I think it is funny how our preceding generations now taunt us about our stake in the world. When Mr. Rodriguez said that”only one in four students, both public and private, can write at a level of proficiency necessary for future job success” I thought well which kids did they test? I have lived in many areas around this country and have been to eight different schools and met hundreds of people and these three of four some how have never crossed my path. I will admit that I was never the best writer but according to the STAR test I am advanced in writing which means that I meet the requirement and considering that I would really like to meet these people who are “functionally illiterate.” I believe that these test results are unfair and biased and that they show just how similar the past generations are to a school yard bully.

These previous generations follow many of the trends of a school yard bully. One of these trends is their constant breaking down of our self-esteem. This includes their nagging about us being an illiterate generation; as Stephanie said there are only 11% of students who don’t read outside of school so that means a whopping 89% of teenagers read for enjoyment. Now literacy is defined as “the ability to read and write” that means that easily 89% of our generation is literate which easily outscores the past generations. In a CIA poll it is proven that 97% of US males and 99% of females are considered literate which means that technically we are one of the most literate societies in the history of the world. The bullying does not end there though they point out our faults, can anyone say columbine or the fact that more teenagers are in jail now then ever before, and use their “weight”and “size,” ability to vote, to change our lives. They take our money, through taxes and Social Security ( yeah I already have to pay for that out of my check), they control how we do things, laws, when we get to drive and how we live. They not only did more hair-brained things when they were young but prohibit us from doing the same. You wonder why our generation turns to the internet and video games, there is nothing else to do everything fun has been outlawed or we have to wait till we are officially adults to do. These similarities are not something I made up. I’m sure everyone has been either a victim or a bully at one point and have had to deal with this before.

Now I also disagree that prison is the only way that teens can have deep thoughts or analyzations, I don’t know about everyone else but some of the most enjoyable nights I have hung out with friends included us having conversations about the political climate, feelings about religion, our general feeling about a certain law or about everyday events, such as racism or ignorance, that effect our life. Now these conversations might not be polished or might involve slang( by the way I think Mr. Rodriguez needs to stop watching valley girl and actually pay attention to real life for once), but they still are meaningful and involve important subject matter. I also would like to say that a majority of conversations we know about from the past are in . . . NOVELS, that means they are edited so of course everyone has good grammar and eloquent word usage; if I recorded one of my conversations and edited I could polish it up nice and use big words too.

Personally I believe that this constant teasing is not only slanderous and ignorant but hurtful to our development as a generation. I think that they are just past generations self-defense against that fact that our generation might pass there’s up. Many past generations talk about their glory days as better but of course they are when you remember them, you are not going to think back about the bad days you remember the good time. I believe the only way to improve our generation is to stop thinking of them in such a bad light.

I have to admit I had a reasonably tough time wrestling with this question. On one hand, I am the kind of person who has a copy of Unusually Stupid Americans lying readily at hand in my room, which clearly and plainly lays out how, well, stupid Americans can be sometimes. It even has a whole chapter on stupidity in education, citing such evidence as a textbook that declares Columbus to have set sail in 1942, a class at Georgetown University titled “Philosophy and Star Trek,” and the fact that 11% of US citizens aged 18-24 couldn’t find the United States on the map. Faced with such evidence of the idiocy of the American people (plus, of course, the commonly cited falling SAT scores, etc.), one would unhesitatingly agree with Mr. Rodriguez’s arguments.

On the other side of the spectrum, it is oftentimes hard believe that, as Mr. Rodriguez puts it, “we Americans are losing our capacity to create or understand language,” when I attend as privileged a school as Foothill. And not only do we lavishly soak in the “more sophisticated” culture at this prestigious school, but we are also in some of the most rigorous classes this school has to offer. We have surrounded ourselves with the best and the brightest, and if you desire more evidence on this point, turn your attention to the other blog postings on this site, and read what the “simple” minds of other high school teenagers have to put forward.

Here’s another thought. Think back to World History class, specifically the French Revolution unit (yes, I know it might be painful for some, but do it anyway). Recall again that often studied and memorized pie graph showing the peasants and the underprivileged to make up 98% of France, while the wealthy made up only two percent. And France is not unique in this respect. In other words, the vast majority of the world remained uneducated for a greater part of the past millennium. In the context of the past few thousand years, and even the past few hundred, we have one of the best educated societies ever. Just because everyone isn’t a genius simply means that we are not living in a brainwashed “utopian” society, because if everyone was a genius, then no one would be.

And yet, at the same time, why are we lagging behind so many other countries in the area of education? Is it because of laziness, or a lack of motivation? Is “Freedom” right in saying that the root cause is attention, or is The Learned Fool right that it is the fault of the teachers and parents themselves? Could Mr. Rodriguez be right that it is the increasingly wired global community who is at fault? Is the government brainwashing us with fluorescent lights to make us more complacent? I am afraid that there is no simple one word answer I can offer, and that it is at best a combination of the above suggestions. If there was a simple answer, there would be a simple solution, and we would not be in this mess today, because we all know that America values simplicity. Most people have already said in their respective blogs what I would have liked to say, and the only un-discussed idea I would like to add to the pot is that it might also be a cultural problem where potentially bright people do not feel like they fit in. All I know is that technology is just being used as a scapegoat (just because someone relies on spell check does not mean they are unintelligent, it just means they have accepted a practical use for technology).

Richard Rodriguez is only partly right.

It is true that the need to be literate is slipping away from the average person’s life. Think about it…. you could survive without having to become a doctor or a lawyer, or anything that calls for great intelligence. Because of our high-speed, corporate world, more opportunities are opening up. People can still become millionaires without having to do too much thinking. Take Paris Hilton, for example. She doesn’t seem like the brightest crayon in the box, but she is still rich and famous. All she had to do was have a successful father and “act” in a terrible show on television.

There are jobs in this world that NEED to be done, and the literate, university graduates sure won’t be the people doing them. For example, would a Harvard alumni become a trash person? Or a burger flipper? No. But the high school drop-outs or the people who faked their way through classes will certainly fill the jobs, because they are the only jobs that they are qualified for. As the world’s industries grow larger and larger, the need for people working lower-minded jobs grows. We NEED those people to help run our greedy world.

For teenagers, this takes away the great need teenagers feel to be successful in school, and in life in general. Sure… we see people shopping at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, or working in McDonald’s, and think that we will never stoop to that unsuccessful level. But in the back of our minds, the thought is always there. If these fallback choices are there for us, then we don’t need to become as literate as our grandparents or great-grandparents needed to be to make money. So we stop paying attention in classes, and start watching television as opposed to reading, and going on MySpace when we should be doing homework.

However, there is one thing that Richard Rodriguez forgot about. There is a group of people who feel like they NEED to be literate and get the best grades. We call them AP students. There is always that nerdy, “future leaders of the world” group at school. WE are them. We push ourselves to our very limits, and always set higher standards for ourselves. Why? To get into college (and because our parents want us to). The competition to get into top universities is steadily growing, and there is always the elite students who feel that our lives would be over if we didn’t go to a four year college. We are the literate people of our age. Sure…we go online and watch TV and listen to the radio (well…now our iPods) with the volume turned up to the max. But on the side, we are reading books. The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Huckleberry Finn. We are literate. We are widening the gap between the hardcore honors kids and the “lazy” college prep kids,

So yes, our generation is growing less literate than that of our ancestors. But that is because not everyone needs to be literate to make money or become successful. It is a sad truth, but it increases every day.

Simply said, Mr. Rodriguez doesn't deserve the "Mr." in front of his name. In response to his claim that the future will demand minds "less self reflective" is almost as corrupt as the insane gas prices. The idea that the young adults of the world are becoming intellectually challenged is a disgrace to my peers and I. I felt attacked by Rodriguez's statement and wondered if I was not living up to my full potential. But then I realized that times have changed from what they used to be. When our parents went through high school they didn't take calculus or honors chemistry or even AP English for that matter. Getting into college was, by far, much easier then it is currently. Because of the current day technology it is assumed that high school students don't appreciate literature, which some don't, but that is a generalization. If Rodriguez were to walk into our AP classroom and see the literature and in-depth conversations he would be amazed at our intelligence and hopefully, he would take back his statement which degraded us all so much.

The technological advances may reduce the thinking process of our minds, but there is so much more expected of us because of it. There are graphing calculators we use in math class, yet we can not use them on any of the hellish tests we are forced to take (SAT, SAT II ect…). To get into a good college right out of high school it is almost mandatory to have above a 4.0 GPA and have taken more then 3 AP classes along with our extra curricular activities, leadership positions, and the endless hours of community service. Being considered a "screenager" isn't just the fault of the teens. The workload put on us my our teachers requires us to use the internet constantly to share our opinions and to be able to access material that it is required for us to be familiar with.

With all the stress teenagers have in their lives with school, work and activities they don't have much time for studying literature for the fun of it or being creative too often. After our 6-7 hour school days and then practice for a sport or working at a job, our brains are near the point of melting which we supplement by watching TV or sitting mindlessly in front of the computer screen and becoming "screenagers" once again. To have a man insult us from keeping our sanity intact is saddening and extremely hurtful. After doing so much for the world and ourselves day after day and getting so little sleep from it that we have to learn to like black coffee, it is discouraging to be put down once again as a failure.

Maybe Mr. Rodriguez needs to open his eyes just a bit more often and realize that the world isn't always a perfect place and that kids have their ups and downs, which can be the result of the poor test scores and claiming that books are a "waste of time". It is a possibility that Rodriguez needs to get away from his computer reading statistics and information on people that he doesn't know anything about….

After being in class with all of my fellow AP students, it makes me so thankful that despite all these somewhat true ‘doomsday’ prophecies about the fate of illiterate America, there are yet people, at least at Foothill, who really do care about what they are learning and come to school (for the most part) because they want to.

Anyways, back to my argument, which I have not yet started. I would have to mostly agree with Rodriguez’s point of view. To be honest, it’s frankly scary to even entertain the thought of a society where there is no need, nor requirement of great minds or challenges. That would mean those who are not exactly the brightest would run our country and in case you haven’t already noticed, this is happening right now (George, anybody?)

But I said I mostly agree with Rodriguez’s claim that America is losing its faculty to really think. Let’s not let this all-or-nothing attitude drag down our hope and leave us to suffocate in our self-incited despair, I mean we use our minds and I’m positive that there are others like us around the country. America isn’t completely illiterate…yet anyways. We have a duty now, to our nation, to resist becoming the myspace generation, and prevent our little brothers and sisters from becoming so as well. I watch my little brother go from playing with trains, drawing ‘kid’ pictures, and erecting entire towns out of legos to become glued to the computer screen, playing mindless internet games and blasting apart cold, computerized droids on Battlefront (a Star Wars computer game). I’m not saying that computer games are completely evil, they are okay…but in small doses. He spends at least an hour a day in front of the computer, oblivious to all else. Whenever I see this, I am overcome with a feeling of sadness—he really is a smart kid. He recieved an incredible score on the state testing, but I fear that due to his excessive use of the computer, his mind will decompose into one of those whose sad lives are composed of nothing but the computer, like a muscle that is rarely exercised and becomes weakened with time and disuse. I do make attempts to tear him from the screen, but mostly to no avail unless my pleading is accompanied by the powerful word: “homework.’ Maybe it isn’t as bad as I think, perhaps he doesn’t spend time on that machine while I am at school or practice, possibly he runs outside to play with our dog, but I think not. The computer is a drug, much like TV, which can be extremely addictive, and my eight-year-old brother is hooked; his creativity and imagination, two qualities uniquely special to childhood are dying.

I know I am being hypocritical when I decree that computers are bad; in fact at this very moment I am logged into myspace, commiserating with fellow students about our unwise decision to leave homework so late…using unimaginative language. It’s official: myspace is a drug. But I really am trying to stop…LOL

We, who are so blessed with a quality education at the hands of Mr. Geib, owe it to our siblings, our friends, the future America, to impede this massacre of minds and turn off the TV or computer. We deserve better than to have our country run by a bunch of idiots with an eighth grade education. We need to read. And read a lot; improve our minds, immerse our unchallenged, “bored” selves into a new culture, one where teens compare what books they have read, not how many so-called friends that they have acquired on myspace.

But we cannot accomplish this on our own. Schools need to offer more challenging classes, even to those who reside in “easy” or “basic” classes. People will rise to expectations, so adults of America, raise your expectations! Do not allow yourselves to fall into the habit of shaking your heads resignedly at our “failures” and do not cast us aside in the thought that we will never ever be what you had dreamed. Challenge us! Please!

Personally, I love reading classics; nobody talks anymore like they do in those sacred leather bound masterpieces, and it’s refreshing, a breath of fresh cold night air, to read one of those. They just don’t make them like they used to. However some classics are difficult to understand and can so easily be waived aside as “boring.” For example, in eighth grade, I read the Scarlet Letter and finished with the same reaction: “Gosh, I’m glad that was over. That was really boring.” Not surprisingly, I was slightly apprehensive when the time came to revisit that book which I quite honestly didn’t completely comprehend; I passed the AR quiz and that was all that mattered at the time. But much to my delight, the more we discussed the Scarlet Letter in class, the more I grew to understand and actually somewhat, gasp, enjoy the book. Perhaps if students were taught more about literature instead of being only assigned & quizzed on a particular piece, they would be more inclined to read on their own, thus creating a more intellectually inclined generation. Hooray!

So I’ve made my hopefully easy to follow points and said what I’ve wanted to say, so I end with my dream of a future where all the little children will join hands and celebrate the great literary prowess of Hawthorne, Proust, Twain, Benjamin Franklin, and others. Okay, not so poignant as Martin Luther King’s speech I’ll be the first to admit, but it gets the point across.

Now go and read something.

You know what I love? I love coming onto a blog site and seeing Luke make an intelligent point about using the internet for discussion and how it is not increasing the stereotype we're supposed to be arguing, and then in his next post argue the point of "The Man wants you to sleep."

I think it's time to get this party started.

It seems to me that criticizing the youth of America today has become the pastime of America's elderly. It is a topic to fall back on while sitting at a donut shop at 5 AM, pointlessly, after driving there with their left turn signals on the entire ride there.
It is true that technology today provides youth with means of escaping the world of deep thought and placid concentration, but it is more a way of providing those uninterested in reading binges and book club meets with something to do. Not every can enjoy a slow-moving night on a hammock reading Hemmingway, which is the reason AP acceptance is a selective process. The sad reality is that although we feel intelligent and motivated in our little 800-something-foot specialty school, the vast majority of our age group is simply not as driven as we are, and they need some way to forget their minimum-level academics for an afternoon and revert to something more along the lines of how much effort they're willing to put in. Also, their parents need to have an excuse to spend pointless amounts of money on entertainment.
In theories of deep philosophy, people as a hole are divided into two categories: "the many" and "the few." The few are those who are "aware" on a level that the many are not; such as an appreciation for literature. In today's world, the few are still able to enjoy their gift. In fact, technology has helped to produce books more quickly and effectively, providing many books to those who want them. The focus of technology has just fallen under the self-righteous and judgmental eyes of our elders, who were not able to enjoy these gifts themselves. It is not unreasonable to assume that if the technologies of today were available when the Scarlet Letter was written, there is a large chance it would not have been written at all, but instead posted as an "emo" MySpace blog, with "comment my pix cuz u luv me" every other sentence.

Is technology a curse which corrupts our youth? Or is it a tool which shows the true face of humanity, and the habits they form when it is available? Would history's greatest novels have been achieved if the internet was available? Literary Analysis and Composition scores may have gone down, but have scores in the field of technology? In today's age, do you find it more useful to appreciate literature, or to manipulate technology? These are all questions which I believe Mr. Rodriguez has not thought about himself.

In the immortal words of MySpace, I think Mr. Rodriguez, and all elderly criticizing of their more fortunate generations, needs to "stfu".

It seems to me that the youth of each generation can find no reprieve from the critics of the past generations. Each one, like Richard Rodriguez, so easily points out the faults of the subsequent generations. With each generation, the perspectives on what is valued and what “should” be valued are warped. Each older generation points out how instability and public anarchy reign supreme in the next, or how the world will surely end because of the lack of control and understanding in the succeeding people. Yet, generation after generation continues to foil these ominous predictions. Why should our generation of technology be any different? Can it not be viewed as a different type of literacy, one that goes beyond novels?

I am most assuredly NOT saying that books, paintings, music, and knowledge from any time period, especially those of the past, should ever be forgotten. Everyone needs to recognize the truths these ancient arts provide. There is a reason that writing, reading, composing, painting, drawing, and any number of the fine arts has survived for so long--it is because they are a part of being human, they are expression. I understand what Rodriguez is arguing; in a way he is warning us to never become illiterate and forget the classics, because in doing so, we lose a piece of ourselves.

However, as important as literacy is, can we not value the information of technology and the information of a classic novel both equally? Each one throws a different light on what we understand. I know that my generation is not one that is doomed to be “the illiterate”. There are always the few that don’t like to read, and that spend their hours absorbed in the TV. There are the people that say they don’t have time for reading novels. However, if something is a passion, you make time for it. I know that I will always have time to read, because I love it. I have many other friends that are this way, and many others who are not.

We are also not short-sighted and unable to ask important questions that have no answer(s). I have a few close friends that I talk to about everything, including mortality, the value and meaning of life, how life was created, God vs. Darwin, or just crushes.
So what right has Rodriguez to say that we are fore-fronting the path to illiteracy? This is an overbearing and dogmatic generalization, and it does not ring true for everyone. Even with his examples of emails versus ten page letters from jail-hardened friends, there are faults. I know that about once a month, I sit down in front of my computer, as I am doing now, and write a very long email to my Aunt in New Orleans. I also do it in Word, as I am now, because I especially hate when “the operation has timed out”, and I lose my hour’s worth of work in one second. I do not simply waste my time on Myspace, I play the piano, I have read many classics, I am learning Spanish, I go to school, I run cross-country, I have friends, I have a family. In short, I have a life. This goes for 99% of my friends as well.

Perhaps, the worth of technology is being overlooked. Perhaps literacy and technology can go hand in hand as volumes of literature, music, and artwork can be shared over the web, allowing people around the world to expand their knowledge. Even this blog is an example of the symbiosis of technology and literacy. Through the use of computers and internet, we are able to debate and post in-depth discussions on literature with our classmates.

Hello public world. Those who appreciate the archaic literature such as “Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and who do not fall into the grasps of the “This book sucks” statement, and will side with me on the fact that people who are in jail are not the only “teenagers who best understand the uses of literacy…”(Rodriguez). This quote, written by Mr. Rodriguez, is based purely on a matter of opinion because I know that there are some teenagers who can understand the uses of literacy and are not in jail. I wonder if we were to invite Mr. Richard Rodriguez to attend our school (Foothill Technology HS) and sit and observe our AmEx (AP English and U.S. History) class for one day maybe, just maybe, he might change his mind and not categorize that all teenagers are the same. I for one actually enjoyed reading “Scarlet Letter”. Although I didn’t really understand it while reading over the summer, I understood it when we got to school and actually analyzed it. Although I’ve never read anything with this type of literature and it is different from anything I’ve ever read because of its depth, this is the only book that actually made me have to think in order to digest it all.

As for the “Screenager” issue, I do agree with Rodriguez on the fact that our economy is leaning towards the fact that our whole lives are beginning revolve around technology and our constant need to have it do our every task. Our tasks all ranging from complicated things like the architectural blueprint to simple things such as getting a simple junk food snack instead of a pre-packed healthy snack. What has our nation, our society, our world come down to, a competition to see who can be laziest the fastest? In our time today, we are so based on the need for technology that our desire for it becomes inevitable and insatiable. Now that the TV has been invented, it’s almost like every household is required to have one or you won’t be “cool” and “in the loop” while the “cool” kids at school talk about the new episode of “Laguna Beach” (a show on MTV, just ask your kids about it). Another thing is, the simple fast easy (and I use that term loosely) email. Now days, the quickest way to talk to each other when not in the same area face to face is to jump onto the computer and send an email. Yes it may be the best way to wish someone a happy birthday without it being three days late or to send pictures of your graduation to your grandparent on the other side of the country but don’t you think it’s getting a little out of hand? The email has gotten rid of those treasured envelopes that you used to receive and that happy feeling you got when you found out someone you actually knew wanted to start a conversation.

Along with the email deal, there is also the AIM (AOL Instant Messaging) and the innumerable slang terms all ranging from OMG (oh my gosh), JK (just kidding), LOL (laugh out loud), and tons of others. Before you know it, our whole world will be turned into a place with shorthand communications and tons of odd letter combinations will be made that will all stand for different things.

On the other hand, technology has helped us in many ways. It has helped us live longer so we can actually see our children grow, our grandchildren grow, and sometimes, if time would permit, even our great grandchildren grow! Unlike during the 17th century when the Puritans and early settlers who didn’t even know who or what grandparents were because they died too early to experience it or see it for themselves when they were still young.

I think that the only reason people in jail would actually have a better understanding of literature is because they have nothing to do so they are forced to engage themselves productive to keep them occupied. I think that teenagers who are not in jail can gain a better understanding of literature if they really wanted to. The reason so many don’t is because they have other things to do and technology has made it so that they are occupied and so they can’t turn away from a program on the TV. Do you know why TV’s are called tubes? It’s because they’re like a vacuum tube, and what do vacuums do? They suck up anything in its path. In this case, the TV is a tube that sucks up all your precious time and slowly but surely decreasing your knowledge and making you even lazier. In a way I agree with the quote by Lewis Mumford which was, “By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed”(Mumford). When I read this, it really hit me because there are so many people out there who are just lazy and sit around doing nothing because they are “bored” and needed something more exciting to pass the time.

So, to sum this whole thing up, teenagers who make an opinion about “Scarlet Letter” being the most boring book are teenagers who fall into the category created by Rodriguez and have no higher intellect and can’t read in between the lines and would rather spend the rest of their lives in front of a computer of TV screen while their brain rots away for all eternity. As for the rest of us who do have a higher intellect and will gladly take the time to absorb this wondrous indispensable literature which is considered archaic and unexciting to others, we have our own category more special than the normal.

I was not surprised by Mr. Rodriguez’s statement about U.S. student’s writing skills. I believe the statistic was stated as, “Only one in four students, in both public and private schools, can write at a level of proficiency necessary for future job success”. Only one in four students, well that does sound about right. After pondering about this particular statement during my sleep, I’ve realized that this fact definitely applies to two of my aunts. One of my aunts who is a year younger than me, will not make it to her high school graduation. Why? It is quite simple. She does not care about school. School means nothing to her. While it is so easy to blame this on her, I know it is not entirely her fault. Even though she should be committed to her studies, I blame her family situation. My other aunt who is about 20 years old, barely made it to her graduation. She claims that she received a diploma, but I beg to differ. If you miss out on your graduation day because you were busy trying to make up for a class you failed in, then it doesn’t count. This particular aunt of mine, like the other three, did not take advantage of their high school education. My mother was the only one who cared enough to graduate and to do something of value with her life. Now my 20 year old aunt is the mother of two kids, but she has nothing else. She does not have a job, money, or even the initiative to try to learn from her mistakes. I tend to look back at this situation as a learning experience for myself, because I do not want my life to end up this way. Sadly, a vast majority of Americans are following the same sinister path as my aunts.

But, why? Why are so many teenagers like this? Reason number one is family. How many families are involved in their kid’s lives? How many families ask their kids about school? How many parents actually talk to their kids? Besides the irrelevant conversations concerning rides to the mall or money for unnecessary merchandise, I don’t think that many parents care enough to be involved with their children.

So I’ve read numerous Newsweek articles about how so many parents push their kids to doing well in school so that they could go to a prestigious college, but is that it? Is that all they care about, college? I want to go to college too, but I think many of America’s teenagers are missing the point. There is more to life than the following:
1. Preschool
2. Kindergarten
3. Elementary School
4. Middle School
5. High School
6. College
7. More College

School is very important, I agree, but what else can you learn in school besides English, Trigonometry, Physiology, and U.S. History? Think about it… you can learn how to properly communicate, how to become organized, how to set goals, how to achieve success, how to listen, and other necessary life skills. But because school has a reputation of being evil and a waste of time, I have realized why so many teenagers drop out of school. We label school as a place where all you do is complete assignments and listen to teachers droning on and on about subjects that may or may not apply to life. If parents encouraged their children to look past the homework and cram sessions, and to seek something deeper and more meaningful, school would not be seen as a prison.

Another factor that contributes to the degrading education statistics is the use of language. I wonder why so many people think using raunchy vocabulary is somewhat appealing to society. I hear this so much everyday. How many times can one person use the same vulgar word in one sentence? Do you really think saying the same word over and over is impressive? Do you think it is cool? Do you think it is hot? Well, it is not. It definitely does not improve your vocabulary. It only makes a person seem callow and shallow. But of course, since celebrities such as rap artists, choose to use this type of language, so do America’s teenagers. So because America’s teenagers choose to seek a lifestyle saying these vulgar words, they become illiterate. But what do I know? I guess if you are unable to form a sentence without saying one of these unfulfilling words, you are still considered cool. So thank you music industry. Thank you to those rap stars who sing those repugnant songs about sex, drugs, and other despicable topics. Thanks to you, many teenagers sing your songs. Thanks to you they can memorize a ring tone to one of your songs, but do not know what figurative language is. Oh well, who needs school right? After all, didn’t most of these considered top-notch artists drop out? I wouldn’t be surprised…

Luckily, at Foothill, I see that there are those certain individuals who do not care whether or not they fit in and spend more time challenging themselves intellectually, than following the crowd. For example, take "ME's" table. Despite their obnoxious chaotic moments, I have to say that I give a little credit to these guys. Sometimes when I least expect it, I hear discussions involving, Hitler, George Bush, communism, fascism, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and other topics I will not mention. Even though at times I wish they would sit somewhere else, far away from me, I appreciate their interest in challenging each other intellectually. How many teenage guys talk about world affairs and politics when not in class? (Outside of Foothill?) Keep it up guys!

Well that’s all I have for today.
Good-bye.

While I do have many strong opinions about this specific topic, I cannot seem to completely agree or disagree with Rodriguez. I do agree that technology is definitely beginning to dominate the world as we know it, but I remain undecided to whether this is entirely a bad thing, or if, possibly, some good may lie hidden beneath the surface. For one, I feel that the reason technology is being misconstrued as evil, is because the purpose of technology is extremely dependant on the people that use it. Just as a knife can be used to cut a watermelon or to kill someone, technology can be a help or a hindrance to the minds of everyday teenagers. I have seen each example of technology’s influence in my own life, as I’m sure many others have as well.

Yes, I have sat in front of myspace for countless hours browsing people’s profiles and just withering my time away when I could have been doing something intelligible such as reading a book. Yes, I have watched TV for a couple of hours instead of doing a school project or getting a start on the tedious amount of homework that lies ahead. And my favorite (which has nothing whatsoever to do with technology), yes I have gone to bed early instead of studying for a test the next day. While these (except for the last one “lol”) are sufficient examples of why technology is sometimes viewed as erroneous, it also proves that cases like these are due to a lack of responsibility. Just like food, it is possible to become “obese” with excessive use of technology, but when used in moderation, technology is merely a healthy part of everyday life.

One of the benefits that technology provides is a sizably larger understanding of the world we live in. We are able to see meteors in space and comprehend why Global Warming is occurring and how to stop the permanence of it. Transportation becomes more and more advanced everyday, and the ease of communication quickly relays information and sometimes saves lives. Okay, so some people may take advantage of this by writing brief messages, but many others are putting these progressions to use. Believe it or not, I still have meaningful conversations over email with my Aunt and Uncle in Florida, and my cousins in Washington DC, along with my friend in Canada. I also have two pen pals in Mexico that only speak Spanish, and we often email each other to keep in touch, hence greatly improving my language skills.

An accusation by Rodriguez is that teens these days are not really thinking, but just who is doing the asking? Without questions to stimulate young minds, it is no wonder why people are gradually seeking refuge in the temporary boredom-blockade, the machine. While adults are often the ones to point the finger at the “illiterate” lives of the new generation of teenagers, isn’t it partially their responsibility for the fact that we have become this way? Without intelligent conversations at the dinner table and the motivation to overachieve in school, how are teenagers supposed to break away from the mundane and become exceptional, fully literate young adults? Don’t ask me. Maybe those who seem to be casting the blame outward should stop and take a look at themselves.

Although I completely agree with Rodriguez when he describes the majority of conversations as merely “chattering”, does this chattering imply that the majority of the world is unable to carry on an intelligent conversation? This I am not so sure about. I must admit to sometimes jabbering on about insignificant matters myself, but I am perfectly able to contribute to a respectable conversation any day of the week. This makes me wonder, is the real problem here that people are not able to speak of pressing issues, or that people do not want to speak of matters such as this? Often I hear people rambling on about nonsense and become curious as to if they are incapable of conversing over worldly conflicts, or if they are just brainwashed by the superficiality that we get caught up in. For example, I just checked my myspace inbox (very quickly mind you), and my friend has written to me (and I quote), “n/m but its so wack....my mom stupid...she doesnt no wat shes talking about....there was no surf......lol....dude do yur sik skid....lol ttul”. I wonder if I asked her what her opinions were on the war in Iraq, would she even know where to begin?

To conclude my thoughts, I definitely agree that society is being corrupted by the “instant-gratification” frame of mind, but it is not yet irreversible. Technology greatly benefits our world, but when it is used in the wrong way, it creates a learning deficit that is intellectually destructive. Used responsibly and in moderation, these advances can enrich society and create a better future. However, people must learn that technology should be viewed as a blessing to be used temperately, not a way of life.

So I sat down at my computer to begin this blog and received a test message. I opened it and read it. It was filled with the language we now call “Ebonics”.

I think that technology is taking away from the education process.

Back ten years ago, the society as a whole wasn’t completely dependent on technology. So what if the internet was creating popularity, video games were hitting the market, or whatever new electronic gadget just came out – they were completely different in society. I mean, they thought we would be flying around in cars by now.

Think about it today: how many hours do spend looking at the computer? How many text messages do you send a day? Do you ever receive mail with a stamp or does to come to your personal computer? Do you ever spend time outside, just to be out side? Do you own an ipod like everyone else? Honestly, how many hours do you spend watching television or movies?

Why are we so dependent on today’s technological advances? Why do we devote ourselves to the “next best thing”?

As we grew up, our generation was really the first to adapt computers into daily life.

It began in school. Everyone remembers ‘Math Blaster’ and ‘The Oregon Trail’. They were just simple games – drugs for the brain. But we loved them. Everyone did.

By middle school you no longer were writing reports on lined paper, but on Microsoft Word.

Just when we thought we could possibly be content. AOL’s Instant Messenger came upon our radar. And today, its text messaging. We are waiting for another program to break down our literacy levels even further.

Let’s just face it: today’s teens are becoming more and more illiterate.

Rodriguez is right. This era is the “information age”, but from this lacking society, it’s turning into “information-dot-com gone wild”.

We no longer sit down and write ten to twelve page letters about novels, poetry, God, heaven and hell, what it feels like to lay under the stars, love, or any random thought that has popped into our heads. Now, we simply place ourselves in front of the computer and write “post-it emails.”

We should put our whole society in little jail cells to guide them back to a reality filled with literacy. Just like Rodriguez wrote, people who have spent time in jail have written long, vibrant letters about anything. That’s all they could do: sit in a small area and think.

Let’s join together and think… we are losing writing skills in our generation, so what to the future generation have in store? We need to give them something to be proud of. Being illiterate it not the answer we are looking for.

(I feel so ironic sitting on a computer writing this. Gross.)

A huge educational push in America (as well as the rest of the world) is to end illiteracy. However, there are different views of what literacy is. Webster’s dictionary defines it as “the ability to read and write.” Mark Twain defines literacy in an altogether different fashion: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” I am inclined to agree with Mark Twain’s definition over Webster’s. Why? Because what use is the knowledge of the technique of reading if it is never used? Why know how to read if the skill is never tested, stretched, enhanced?

The article by Richard Rodriguez titled “Is There a Role for Literacy in the Information Age?” claims that “many of the teenagers who best understand the uses of literacy are sitting in jail…one needs to be in a tiny cell, reduced to writing on toilet paper, to comprehend the soul’s ache for literacy.” Mr. Rodriguez has a point – people who do not have access to the many distractions of technology are forced to think and appreciate the process of thinking. But I do not believe that a jail cell is necessary for the appreciation of literature. Turning the cell and home phones, TVs and portable DVD players, game boys and play stations, mp3 and CD players, laptops and computers all off would accomplish the same thing! Instead of hiding troubles from the world in the so-called ‘pursuit of property’ – wait, you say it should be ‘pursuit of happiness’? Doesn’t American society equate ‘happiness’ with ‘property’ so that the terms are interchangeable? – Americans should be subjected to one big power-outage. They would be, gasp, forced to actually spend time with their families! And, oh no!, they would be forced to think instead of brainlessly distracting themselves from the issues that bother their innermost selves. Ray Bradbury puts it this way: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

As the American culture focuses more and more on the accumulation of property (A.K.A. things), it encourages Americans to have thoughts only of themselves. This self-centeredness results in a generation where teenagers no longer care about what is going on in the world, what people in 200 plus year old books thought, the history of America or the rest of the world, and anything else that does not directly effect them.

American teenagers, for the most part, (I would have to except those of us in the American Experience classes or other teenagers who actually spend their free time reading or in intense thought) don’t ever think about how their actions will effect future generations. The insouciant behavior executed by today’s teenagers (again, there are exceptions) will have long-lasting effects on all of the subsequent generations. “Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” –Henrik Tikkanen

In regards to many students claiming that “The Scarlet Letter” is boring, I agree with Mr. Geib in that the boredom may be in the reader and not the novel. Everything humans perceive and experience is tempered by perspective. Let’s look at an example. Two people are at the fair, one is having a wonderful time and the other isn’t. Perhaps the unhappy fairgoer got in an argument with a friend or has just received some bad news. If the two people experience the exact same rides, eat the same food, and even sit right next to each other at the rodeo or monster truck rally, they would still have differing experiences because of their perspective on the things around them. So, if two people read the same book, they will naturally have different opinions about the book. The trouble nowadays is that the majority of teenagers are not forced to think hard about literature, or do not have to develop tenacity to survive. Everything is at teenager’s fingertips, from TV spoilers to information on that cute kid who sits next to them in biology. Because the average teenager is so used to finding everything he or she needs so easily, genuine challenge is foreign to them. So when forced to read a “boring” classic written hundreds of years ago that uses words they’ve never heard of and nuances they can’t understand, they get frustrated, and out of their frustration is born an instant dislike of the novel. Thus they form the same opinion as Charles de Montesquieu: “An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.”

I do not believe that the American teenager does not have the capacity to read classic literature or to write paragraphs as Mr. Rodriguez claims. I do believe that they are not fulfilling their potential because we live in a society that does not challenge the teenager to think outside of him or herself, thus creating an egocentric generation that will leave a host of problems for the following generations.

NOT ALL HOPE IS LOST! If parents don’t give their children videogame technology, restrict TV zombie hours, and provide good literature from a young age, their offspring will grow up a more contented and contemplative generation than otherwise; they will actually care about what is going on in the rest of the world. In short, the root of the problem is not in the technology itself, it is the learned and encouraged obsession with it. But with each generation becoming more and more obsessive, the chance of the cycle ending continues to decrease. In the words of Jim Dine, “I do not think that obsession is funny or that not being able to stop one’s intensity is funny.”