New Technology and Learning
Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs is written like a diary. It has entries everyday with the main character’s thoughts about what had occurred during the day. An example of an entry in Microserfs would be having the main character, Daniel, and one of his roommates discussing Lego’s and the conversation going on between them, then switching to a possible job offer that he could get, and then switching the topic one last time to a shiatsu moment which is the last topic at the end of the diary entry (76). Also in the novel, Coupland uses variations on type sizes, computerspeak, and emoticons to give the reader some visual interest while reading.
One common theme throughout Microserfs is the future and what the world will look like. The characters speculate on how those who lived during the 1970’s would have imagined what the future would look like to them, and of course how the future will look like for those living during the 1990’s. In a review of the book, Kevin Brooks makes the statement on technology, “Technology, on the other hand, is largely responsible for the explosion in popular culture, and the novel is replete with references to television shows, movies, music, games, toys, and breakfast cereals” (143). Many of these references are present throughout the novel, and the characters discuss how they will change and how they did change from when they were first created.
Along with these topics of the future, Coupland uses the computerspeak, type sizes, and emoticons to help show how writing has gone from being formal to being more informal. In the twenty first century, blogging, message boards, and texting have affected the way storytelling and personal narratives are portrayed to today’s society. Now, people find it hard to sit down and write something more formal, like an essay for school, because they do not have the experience in doing so. They misspell words, use abbreviations instead of taking time to write out the entire word, and they use these little smiley faces called emoticons to describe how they are feeling. By using the blogs, message boards, and text messaging, the younger generations do not know how to communicate with people. They would rather send a text message, or instant message, then to call the person and have a conversation with them.
Some concerns with this are that the younger generations will not know how to interact with people in a room. I have seen examples where two kids were sitting next to each other, not saying a word, but instant messaging each other on the computer instead of turning to the person and talking to them. Another concern is with the new developments of the young teens sending inappropriate text or picture messages to those of the opposite sex and those kids getting into trouble. It seems like they do not have any respect for themselves or their friends by sending these text messages around.
Microserfs is more so written like a blog than a diary. A blog is where someone can go and freely express themselves online. The only thing is, is that the blogs cannot be private, like a diary can. Anyone searching through the World Wide Web can access someone’s blog and read what that person has to say. A diary that someone writes in is private and no one else is supposed to read it. It contains the person’s innermost thoughts on the world and their life, and it should be private. Message boards are also brought up in the novel and they are online sites that people can go to and have a conversation back and forth on a topic that they found interesting. These are also not private and can be brought up in any internet search. Op-ed articles in newspapers are a similar to message boards but are better thought out. Op-ed articles have had the time taken out to edit the piece and spell check, whereas on the message boards people do not spell check and therefore what they put down might not always make sense to anyone reading it.
Along with the blogs and message boards, there is text messaging and emoticons that have affected people’s writing styles today. Text messaging is where two people can have a conversation but instead of talking to each other, they are sending small messages to each other. It can be said that a text message is like a note. Most people normally use text messaging to have a conversation with someone else instead of sending a reminder to another person. By using text messaging, people have a hard time actually talking to people in person or over the phone. The emoticons are a way to show some sort of emotion in an online chat with people. They are made by pressing certain keys in a certain order and when someone sends it in a message, a smiley face appears doing the facial expression that they want it to. An example of an emoticon would be for a happy face you get J, which is a : and ) put together without any spaces.
Although it may seem as if the text messaging, online blogging, and message boards are hurting the younger generations writing skills, they also are useful for educational purposes.
“Teachers and students are creating and maintaining weblogs as learning projects, as part of the learning processes in the classroom” ( Clyde 43). These uses for the weblogs have helped bring the generations of today into a twenty-first century way of learning. The blogging is used as an educational tool not just for the students, but for the teachers as well. They get to see their students in a different environment, outside of school. The teachers can see their students more as individual people and not just one massive group of teenagers who all have the same interests. This helps propels the younger generations into finding new ways of learning and pushing society forward.
Works Cited
Brooks, Kevin. . "Microserfs." The Writing Instructor 16.3 (1997): 141. Research Library. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 19 Apr. 2009 http://www.proquest.com/
Clyde, Laurel A. ."educational blogging. " Teacher Librarian 32.3 (2005): 43-45. Research Library. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 27 Apr. 2009 http://www.proquest.com/
Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York, NY. 1995.
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