Justin, 9/4

Tuesday's class really got me thinking about the interdependence of text and how easy it can me to misinterpret text when it is missing simple punctuation. Hemingway's short story, in the way that every piece of what was essentially 6 words and some punctuation got us going in many directions of thought until the final piece of punctuation was there, made me think about the way we communicate over the internet today. I remember in elementary school learning how to write a letter. Who writes letters anymore? Emails have no real structure- they are built for speed. I never use capitalization in emails, unless they are business or school-related. And I pay much less attention to punctuation. At times the text is very casual and easily understood, but, as I'm sure it's happened to everyone, important misinterpretations have been known to happen. It seems, though, that our culture is moving towards a form a communication that dumbs down the writing and allows more for speed and assumption. On our cell phones we have text messaging templates that have pre-written messages like "Running late." I rarely use them, because they don't say everything I need them to. Shorthand has become an art. Everyone knows the annoying little uses of FYI and LOL. The priority, again, is speed. But was language really that slow before? When's the last time you wrote a message to someone that took over fifteen minutes to write? We have changed what we see as reasonable designations of time for tasks. Reading and writing messages shouldn't take over a few minutes. Getting all of a news story shouldn't require much thought or research. If we only read the headlines, and maybe even the summary if we get a chance, how much meaning do we lose along the way. Often times a current event will come up in discussion that I have heard about, but that I really know nothing about because I am not used to taking the time to get all of the information. This leaves me to, as Dr. Casey said, smile and nod.

Communication does, as I experienced in an online conversation with a friend last night, take time. She was having a normal but serious problem, and I was eager to help. But we kept cutting each other off because of the nature of the online conversation. In the end, I'm not sure I said all that I meant to say, or that I meant to say all of what I said. Online conversation is advantageous in that it allows you to see what you are saying before you must send it. But tone is something very important that is lost. Tuesday's class reminded me how important it is to take the time, with the readings and the writings, and hopefully a lot more meaning will get through.