Analytical
Response to Thompson’s “Public Thinking”
Clive
Thompson, author of “Public Thinking” has been a long time writer for the New
York Times newspaper, and rightfully so. His diction exemplifies tremendous
passion in his writing. One of his most famous works in which he demonstrates
this is “Public Thinking”. Interestingly enough, in his earlier years, Thompson
viewed the Internet and social media as an increasing downfall of society. To
his surprise, he began to see only good coming from this launch into a new
technological era. People were writing in large amounts like no one has ever
seen before, not to mention the quality of writing due to “the audience effect”
had also taken a turn for the best. These are just two of the positive attributes
Thompson sees in online writing. His purpose for writing this essay is to
demonstrate to the public a number of ways that writing online is actually
increasing our literacy. He expresses himself so deeply, due to the fact that
this topic is very controversial and people usually tend to lean more toward
technology and online writing becoming a detrimental thing to our society.
Thompson uses a number of evidence to inform the reader every reason as to why
this is a common misconception. In my analytical response to Thompson’s text, I
will examine the different techniques he uses in his evidence to show just how
effectively he explains and executes every piece of evidence he provides the
reader.
Although Americans
today tend to believe that the increasing use of the internet and other forms
of technology has a negative effect on society as a whole, there are 3 main
forms of evidence that are properly executed in order to support Thompson’s
case that Americans are in fact, wrong. An experimental study done by professor
Brenna Clarke Gray illustrates the audience affect on her students by assigning
them to create a Wikipedia entry on Canadian writers. After her study, Gray
shared that her students did significantly better on this assignment than the
others, primarily due to the fact that they took it more seriously. She states,
“It was like night and day” (56). She
uses night and day as opposites in order to show her pathos to her study and to
instill within the reader just how successful and persuasive this study was.
The fact that the idea of online prose is such an abundant way of writing to
one’s highest potential as to use it in an academic study goes to show that
this discovery is far from myth. However, to every study is a little error. In
the case of this example, it would have benefitted the reader vastly if this analysis
were to have been replicated on individuals in the middle school age to see if maturity
has a factor on the results.
In addition to this study, Thompson
uses an incidence in history to support the idea that the way we think is a
product of our environment. “If four astronomers discovered sunspots at the
same time, it’s partly because of the quality of lenses in telescopes in 1611
had matured to the point where it was finally possible to pick out small
details on the sun and partly because the question of the sun’s role in the
universe had become newly interesting in the wake of Copernicus’s heliocentric
theory” (Thompson 59). This directly ties into present-day Americans and the
development of the Internet as a place where we can freely express ourselves
through our individual and original writing. If the people who surround us are
writing more due to the accessibility and convenience of the Internet, we will
follow the crowd due to our human nature of being “pack animals”. The increase
in popularity also leads to more competition such as: “Who always has a really
well-written Facebook status” or even, “Who has the cleverest captions to their
pictures on Instagram?” These rhetorical questions are just two examples in
which Americans have found themselves to ask while surfing through social media
sites and directly correlates to the increase in human cognition. This is
evident in human nature to always be “on top” or have a competitive “alpha”
mentality. This claim of Thompson’s is quite effective as he brings a new
element into his evidence by adding an example from history. He proves that
this is the way human behavior has worked for centuries and there is no reason
why now is the time when that comes to an end.
One of Thompson’s concluding points
includes a personal anecdote on Ernest Duchesne and his original discovery of
penicillin. Due to the fact that Duchesne was young and not very well known,
his writings of the discovery weren’t noticed. It took 47 years, and millions
of people dead from diseases, for its rediscovery by Scottish scientist
Alexander Fleming to finally be accepted by the public. “Failed networks kill
ideas” (Thompson 61). This was the perfect thing for Thompson to say in his
work because it truly adds another element of pathos. Pathos is an important component
in successful writing today because the reader is given the opportunity to
understand in more of a personal manner. This writing technique is becoming
more popular because Americans are starting to realize what grabs the reader’s
attention and allows for the author to be easily noticed. If Duchesne and
Fleming were to have the same connections we do today, millions of innocent lives
could have been saved.
To wrap it all up,
it is clear that Thompson was able to connect to the reader through his various
writing styles and types of evidence. I have portrayed in this paper, his
exemplary use of just 3 of his main claims: an account in history, experimental
study, and lastly a personal anecdote. His argument is very relevant which is
another main reason why so many people are interested in what he has to say. It
has been a common misconception in the past that technology was actually the
antagonist of developing society and used as a crutch for people’s lazy
writing. But through his writing, people began to listen, for what he had to
say instilled a new thought in the minds of people whom technology greatly
affects. The Internet “encourages public thinking and resolves multiples on a
much larger scale and at a pace more dementedly rapid” (Thompson 61).
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