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The Kids are Writing

August 26, 2009 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 3 COMMENTS

Interesting Wired article by Clive Thompson about how young people actually still know how to write (and are pretty good at it at that). This from a Stanford University study run by a professor there named Andrea Lunsford:

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom--life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

The article also goes on to explain that these students are actually good writers, as judged by their ability to adapt to their audience. I was actually thinking about this yesterday as I was drafting up a blog post for The Barbarian Group blog. I started off my career writing for a magazine and since I left the world of writing on a daily basis (at least for pay) I feel as though my skills have only increased. It's sort of a crazy thing. The other interesting epiphany I had while writing the post was that I actually do my best thinking while writing, which I'm not sure is actually a new thing. I find the act of explaining my thinking takes me much further than just going through things in my head.

Tags: blogs, writing, youth


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COMMENTS

1Simon Gough

It's good to see studies that offset the negative views of young people (especially that they're mumbling illiterates, which is a common perspective on teenagers), but it's your last point that was the most interesting.

There's a nice, short conversation between Seth Godin and Tom Peters about the same subject on You Tube. I couldn't paste the link in here but if you Google Seth Godin Tom Peters Blogging you'll get it.

Writing is a really good way to thing constructively. Even if nobody reads it.

August 27, 2009

2Ted Rheingold

I was speaking with a Bay Area high school teacher last week who contradicted this. Our conversation started because she said her students speak and write like they txt and IM. I asked her how many of them know that that is not how English is formally written. She said half know it's not proper English and can write formally. She said half didn't and couldn't.

August 27, 2009

3Noah Brier

@Simon: Thanks, will check it out.

@Ted: Fair point. It's also not like there are a lot of kids who can't write at Stanford, where the study is from ...

August 27, 2009