Technology Changes the Way We Write

Technology has changed virtually every aspect of the human existence. We can do almost anything faster and seemingly better using technology. Along this line of reasoning, we have turned to computers and word-processing software to help us compose various forms of rhetoric. Once a slow and foreign process to most, it now comes as second nature. In Interface Culture, Steven A. Johnson cites an anecdote from his own life similar to many others that illustrates this phenomenon. Through this experience, Johnson derives an important observation; technology changes the way we write. Johnson finds that because he uses a word processor, he composes fragments and incomplete ideas, not full sentences; moreover, he realizes that grammar is no longer a concern because of automatic corrections and software features (144). I believe this poses other consequences. While word processing software is undoubtedly here to stay, and likely the most harmless of all learning technologies, I believe it would be wise to pay attention to the lapse in attention to grammar. In order to educate well-spoken, articulate rhetoricians, proper grammar should be more strenuously taught in composition classes to compensate for this change.