Yesterday, I was tutoring English grammar using the newest edition of the Prentice Hall Grammar Workbook. In the "identify subjects/objects of sentences" section, I found the following sentence:
"For many people, twittering is a useful source of important information."
The implications of this are astounding.
1) How puerile has our culture become that Twitter is now a part of our educational system? Is this the publisher's way of attempting to reach out and relate to the younger generation? If so, I do not support these efforts, but find them insulting and counterproductive. I think that Twitter is evidence of how everyone is being pushed towards increasing immaturity in two ways:
A) If you can't say it in 160 characters, you can't post it here. God forbid you have more complex thoughts than that. This interface places almost Orwellian limitations on interpersonal communication, and I find it disgusting.
B) Twitter is mostly a place for celebrity gossip and "trends" created by whatever "important" person decides to impose his or her opinion on a particular topic.
This isn't to say that Twitter is completely useless. If I used Twitter, I would have posted the following Tweet:
"true story: was tutoring n found sentence in Prentice Hall Grammar Workbook: 'For many people, twittering is a useful source of important information.' 4 real."
It is also quite useful for posting links to interesting articles and trivia... but "a useful source of important information?" Please give me an example. Anyone.
Putting Facebook in a textbook would be bad enough... but Facebook has at least been around for more than five years and is now a legitimate part of adult networking.
2) Isn't it called "tweeting?"
FAIL
Suzie..
ReplyDeleteI'll bite, first, neither should be mentioned in school at all. Second, the only people who tweet are either rich, famous, important on the national scale, or an arrogant pompous moron. This whole situation amplifies the "Do it for Bieber" pop coulture atempt to affect politics at its finest.
Jon F.
Your rant reminds me of the youtube video of bryant gumbel and katie couric wondering aloud what the heck the internet is. Almost everyone uses twitter, even dinosaurs like John McCain; referencing the website in an educational context is not puerile, it's practical due to the site's ubiquity. Had the book said something along the lines of "for many people, the dewey decimal card catalog at their local library is a useful source of important information" then you would be unleashing a similarly pretentious rant about how anachronistic you feel the book is.
ReplyDelete5 or 6 years ago, people were voicing similar objections to facebook. Before that, they were voicing similar objections to internet companies like amazon and ebay; long before that, they were voicing similar objections about the legitimacy of motion-picture and television actors. Yet today here we are. You say that "facebook is a legitimate part of adult networking..." what makes fb legitimate, and twitter not? Simply a fact of seniority? So if we wait 5 or 6 years, twitter won't be lame anymore?
Twitter was used against Ahmadinejad during the protests in Iran, and was used against Mubarak during the protests in Egypt. Therefore noble? The television is used to vote for American Idol. Therefore childish? We can cherry pick people's behaviors about any tool we like to paint a dire, puerile, civilization-ending picture about that tool; the end result is some teenagers put some flaming poop on your porch while you scream "get off my long, you damn younglings!"
Just to be clear, I'm not calling YOU pretentious, just your rant.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you are pretentious. And so am I. But that's irrelephant, because it has nothing to do with elephants.
BG, I find it comforting that every time you tear me a new one, you at least make me laugh in the process.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do feel that because of the audience of the textbook in question (this is a basic grammar workbook written for children, the mentally handicapped, and those who speak English as a second language), saying that Twitter is an important source of information is somewhat inappropriate. 90% of the book's users are kids...
kids do not do important things with Twitter. Not ever.
Depends on what you define to be important. 13 year olds find twitter far more important than MSNBC, I'd imagine.
ReplyDeleteI heard on the radio the other day that something like only 20,000 people actually follow 50% of what is posted on twitter. Therefore, it is not actually as pervasive a technology as people seem to think. In fact, most people only follow THEMSELVES....might as well get sticky notes to put up all over your house everytime you have an oh-so-brilliant and share-worthy thought or news-stuff.
ReplyDelete