Description
In Always On,
Naomi S. Baron reveals that online and mobile technologies--including
instant messaging, cell phones, multitasking, Facebook, blogs, and
wikis--are profoundly influencing how we read and write, speak and
listen, but not in the ways we might suppose.
Baron draws on a
decade of research to provide an eye-opening look at language in an
online and mobile world. She reveals for instance that email, IM, and
text messaging have had surprisingly little impact on student writing.
Electronic media has magnified the laid-back "whatever" attitude toward
formal
writing that young people everywhere have embraced, but it is not a
cause of it. A more troubling trend, according to Baron, is the myriad
ways in which we block incoming IMs, camouflage ourselves on Facebook,
and use ring tones or caller ID to screen incoming calls on our mobile
phones. Our
ability to decide who to talk to, she argues, is likely
to be among the most lasting influences that information technology has
upon the ways we communicate with one another. Moreover, as more and
more people are "always on" one technology or another--whether
communicating, working, or just surfing
the web or playing games--we
have to ask what kind of people do we become, as individuals and as
family members or friends, if the relationships we form must
increasingly compete for our attention with digital media?
Our
300-year-old written culture is on the verge of redefinition, Baron
notes. It's up to us to determine how and when we use language
technologies, and to weigh the personal and social benefits--and
costs--of being "always on." This engaging and lucidly-crafted book
gives us the tools for taking on
thesechallenges.