Melanie Mavins
April 10, 2010
Professor Meehan
You Tube: Friend or Foe?
You are sitting surfing the web on a computer and you come across a website where you can watch videos, have a social connection to people, and find educational information on various topics. This site that is new to you is called You Tube; you view it as just a social network, but in actuality it has more complexity to offer than that. Sven Birkerts, the author of “The Gutenberg Elegies,” may view this site as a non-literary medium and an anti- educational medium. However, the ability to find educational information on any topic is the key factor that contributes to this digital medium and its legitimacy as a text. You Tube is educational because a user can find not only videos about any informative topic from cultures to nuclear physics, but also a user can read comments about the videos that can add depth and background to the video. Other users responding to the comments make You Tube a social network. I disagree with Birkert’s theory that all electronic mediums cannot be an educational tool because You Tube is a prime example that some can be just as beneficial as a printed source could be to a student.
Birkerts has a firm argument that this world is undergoing an unchangeable process/ metamorphosis of transforming from “print orientation and [into] that of electronic systems” (Birkerts 121). He claims this as a negative change as he refers to the electronic mediums as “the devil…” (Birkerts 211) that took away his old private world and changed it by “booting up, flaming, [and] and commanding vast systems and networks….” (Birkerts 211). This makes him fear for the future students because these electronic mediums distract the younger generation. Birkerts believes that the electronic world is too public. You Tube fits into this category because of the multiple videos, cyber chatting, and hypertext that this site has to offer. Everyday people around the world focus less and less on the use of a “print medium[s]” (Birkerts 123), and focuses more on the electronic age of using computers, blogging, communicating through computers, hyper texting, etc.
I disagree with Birkerts; this electronic/digital medium opens portals and opportunities for everyone in the world to educational factors. Watching videos on You Tube is like a different language. This language allows users different pathways to move around the site and to get connected with different people, and expose them to different education lessons of their choice. You Tube has “NONLINEAR structures” (Hayles 37) that Katherine Hayles, author of “Writing Machines,” would argue makes You Tube uniquely different from printed books but which offers the same literary information. Books are linear because readers can go from the top of the page “down the page” (Birkerts 122), page after page. In contrast on You Tube the user can have the opportunity of accessing information in no particular order and the user can click on a link that takes you to a complete different path. This is a new generation of students who are used to reading a computer screen rather than the linear structure of a book. This age has accommodated too change in the same way that the world had a similar change years back from using “….pencil[s] [and] pen[s]…[to]…typewriter[s]…” (Birkerts 156-157). This society has clearly adapted to that change in the past (so what is the different between then and now?), change is evolution. For example, in an article called, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicholas Carr discusses the effects that electronic mediums are having on students. Students’ skim not read full out anymore and that lead them to be lazy towards printed works. I disagree; my generation is socialized to using these electronic mediums for all aspects of life. In my college classes today most of our assignments require us use to computers to find information and prepare our papers. Like Birkerts said, this is an ongoing “process” (Birkerts 153), so why try to fight it? We might as well accommodate it. You Tube is one of the answers to that. With You Tube videos, students can watch, for example, movies or history channel episodes on the same authors that Birkerts lists (Henry James, Shakespeare, and Ellison) that students should read in order to understand old literature filled with “diction and syntax” (Birkerts 19). I am not saying that we should get rid of the physical readings of novels and other literature . be we should understand that sites like You Tube can enhance the reading. When you view a clip on You Tube about for example, Shakespeare or Ellison, you can have access to people’s comments about the subject that can create a social environment of allowing you to gain more information of that subject.
Electronic mediums are an upcoming change from privacy to being public. For this point, Birkerts possibly could be right. Maybe this new generation will not be able to handle You Tube because of it being too public with postings of videos, music, anything on the web. Even though You Tube has educational facts that can be offered on it about any subject, maybe students will be distracted by these videos or music and not pay attention to the educational aspects of this digital medium. For example, there have been times where I have been on You Tube looking for topic X and end up on topic z. Some would say that this new generation no longer takes the time to read these “slow works” and have an physical intake of information, this new generation is on the go and interested in receiving the information at a fast pace. For example, it is true that lots of students access spark notes online because it is fast and quick to find the information that you want. People like the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” claim that electronic mediums such as You Tube gains information from us (history or background) more than it gives information to us. For example, going back to the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” “The idea that our minds is not only built into the workings of the Internet, the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements”(Carr). So for my argument stating that You Tube can be literature, it is true, that You Tube can be literary; it is just the possibility of students taking this opportunity or not. So, Maybe Brikerts has a point to be afraid of this new electronic world. So electronic mediums such as You Tube can be a flawed as a learning tool to students. This leads to the question whether You Tube is a friend or a Foe?
To answer this question, You Tube and also other electronic mediums are our friends. It is true that digital mediums such as You Tube is attached with multiple flaws that can lead people to have the opinion that the new electronic age is a negative affect when it comes to education and gaining information for students of today. In reality, You Tube is a helping hand to students when it comes to education, gaining information, and being a social network. You Tube can be a distraction in some cases with its “NONLINEAR structures ” (Hayles 37) and features like the videos, pictures, and music. What about the literature books with pictures or other distracting features that leads their readers away from the main point of the text. For example, once I read this book that had jokes at the bottom of every page with pictures that distracted me from understanding the point of the book. So why say electronic mediums can be a distraction where as printed works can have distractions also, there is no difference between the two. Electronic mediums such as You Tube are adapted to the new generation of students in this time period. Of course, this generation has a fast pace of gaining information and not taking the time to “slow down” like the pace of reading printed works. Students want to get straight to the point and find the main idea; they do not have the patience anymore like their parents or grandparents to grasp the beginning of a story or the plot. This is not necessarily a negative aspect; for example, when it comes to researching you have to be able to gain huge amounts of information in a short amount of time to write papers or to give an report for education. When you create an account on You Tube or any other electronic mediums, the website “remembers” who you are. It tracks your interest of music or type of videos you like. This also cannot be necessarily bad. This makes it easier for you to search for things or easier to find information about things that you like. For example, on You Tube, it “remembers” that I am interested in videos about anatomy and Langston Hughes. This factor of electronic mediums in general brings students closer to education and makes it easier for them to go through the gaining information process.
You Tube and also other electronic mediums are our friends. “Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes” (Carr). Access is the key to learning about different subjects, gaining information, and searching the world. You Tube and other digital mediums are this access that people need as a friend to gain educational information. This is the key and purpose of printed books, “Gaining educational information across from one person to another.” This is the theory that Birkerts and Hayles are trying to explain, the traditional method of people getting information (reading books) has been processed and changed into them receiving this information in a totally different new way ( digital mediums). You Tube fits into this theory of this “Transmission” (Birkerts 159) from this traditional world to a new because on You Tube, you can gain information on authors, poetry, history, geography etc., the same information that you can get from all the books in the world. The only contrast is that instead of traveling from place to place or from country to country, you can do this entire sitting right in front of a computer screen with one place of access, You Tube.
Reflection: I think that this essay is really argument and will really make the reader think about this argument over electronic vs. printed works. This is a strong essay and the analysis part needs to be worked on a little.
I pledge my word of honor that I have abided by the Washington College Honor Code while completing this assignment. M.M.
References
1.) Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies. New York: Faber and Faber Inc., 1999. 37-170. Print.
2.) Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?.” Atlantic Magazine July.2008: n. page. Web. 25 Apr 2010. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/>.
3.) Hayles, N. Katherine. Writing Machines. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2002. 20-50. Print.
