Thompson’s Public Thinking

September 12, 2018

1. What did you think of the text? Which passages seemed most interesting, or connected in some way to your own experience online?

I thought this excerpt was really interesting, I guess I have never thought about how much our recent generations write. We write hundreds of texts a day, post statuses on the internet almost every day, and publish articles or blog posts weekly. Just a few decades ago writing this often was not common at all, just letters every now and then. Growing up in this era of technology, I never realized how much I personally write on the daily, and reading this really highlighted that for me. I liked the passage explaining that famous poets or the average person don’t really write about things they already know. “‘I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind,’” “‘We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.’” I never thought about it like that, but I really liked that quote from Cecil Day-Lewis, and made me think about why I write. I don’t write much online, I mainly write texts and emails to friends or teachers, or the occasional journal entry. This excerpt really opened my eyes to this era of writing, and I’m proud to be apart of it.

2. What seem to be Thompson’s main claims? What did you think of these claims?

I like how Thompson used a lot of statistics and comparisons to show the difference in writing cultures of now and decades ago. He highlights the number of tweets, emails, facebook statuses, texts, and more that are sent everyday in the United States alone, which creates a powerful argument that our current generation is so word-heavy. I honestly didn’t really pick up on much of an argument while I read through this, just paid close attention to his details and statistics, because it’s mind-boggling how much Americans write and post and read, especially compared to times when their only option was to compose a hand-written letter and trust the postal service to deliver it. I like that our generation is very into writing, because that means for the most part we’re all in touch with our thoughts and feelings, and we have the desire to share these thoughts all the time. I think Thompson could have developed a stronger argument and highlighted claims, because I didn’t really pick up on many.