Catching Up

Hi Y'all!
So, I have to catch up for a couple of weeks. Last week my internet was all out of whack! Sorry I didn't get all of your assignments graded until Sunday. I think it's fixed for good now. I'll keep my fingers crossed. I want to first talk about the letters assignment. That is my favorite assignment EVER! I try to incorporate that assignment in any class that I can.

I love the assignment because I think it does a couple of things. First, I think it reinforces the idea that internet communication definitely creates a different feeling than more traditional forms of communication. Too often I think we choose the easier, more convenient form of communication regardless of the appropriateness of the medium. I remember hearing that Tori Spelling heard about her father's death over a text message. Now, why on earth wouldn't you call somebody with that kind of news? Even if you assumed the person knew, wouldn't you want to express your sympathies in a more personal manner. A number of you have written that you either know of or experienced yourself a break-up with a significant other through a text message. Wow, what a cowardly way out. I think Wood and Smith and Postman have it correct that we need to remember that there are people, real living, thinking, feeling human beings on the other side of the technology. When I was in grad school, I was living in Boston and my then boyfriend was living in Western Pennsylvania. We had made an agreement before I moved that if either one of us wanted to break up we couldn't do it over the phone. We had to do it in person. I don't remember why we made the agreement; I think we just wanted to make sure that we didn't take the easy way out. There were a couple of times when one of us wanted to break up so we set up a time to see the other person. Of course, we'd see each other and nixed the break-up plans. We later got married and divorced. Maybe taking the easy way out would have been better! Probably not. But imagine if we would have had text messaging. I shudder to think.

The second reason why I love this assignment is because in a world that is growing increasingly uncivil, we don't take the time to show a little gratitude and kindness. A hand written letter, as some of you pointed out, is something that you can keep and cherish. The top drawer of my office at school is where I keep thank you notes from students. Y'know, when I'm feeling down and feeling like a crappy teacher, I open the drawer and pick out a couple of the notes and am reminded that I'm not all bad. I try to follow my own assignment and write a letter to someone who has helped me over the years. This year, I wrote a card to the chair of my undergrad department. I gave it to her at a conference and told her to read it later. I didn't hear from her for a couple of weeks. She was blown away. It was a little disconcerting when I didn't hear from her right away. I thought maybe she had forgotten to read it. But getting her email (yeah, she responded via email) made my day. We get so used to instant responses that we don't have the patience for a delayed reply. What a shame. Sometimes the best things take a little time.

I hope your experiences writing the letters were positive and I hope you'll take the time every now and then to not just shoot someone an email, but make the time and take the effort to actually write a note, card or a letter to say thanks. It does make a difference. Over the past few years, I've had a couple of nephews come visit me from various parts of the country. They always write thank you notes. Well, some kind of thank you. I can tell you that I've got all of the notes, none of the emails. It's just not the same thing - printing off an email.

On another topic, I wanted to tell you about a book I read last week - when my internet was down. It's called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to your Brain by Nicholas Carr. It's a great read. The book talks about how technology has changed the wiring of our brains over time. The essential argument of the book is that internet reading - the skimming that we typically do when we read things on the internet - short circuits our ability to engage in deep thinking. This means that our ability to make connections and be creative in our thinking. So, often we think we don't really need to know things because we can just google it (there's a whole chapter on Google). Carr argues that in order to make information useful we have to have already encoded other information in long term memory. Otherwise, the information just gets deleted as short term memory gets deleted. This makes absolute sense to me. If we don't encode information about the Great Depression, the current recession seems like something new. Consequently, we end up trying to reinvent the wheel. Anyway, the book is really interesting and I encourage you all to read it.

Well, I guess that's all I'll write for now. Have a great week!
Dr. Goodnow