Cell-Outs?

Upon reading the article from the NYT, I must confess that my initial reaction was something along the lines of, "Yet another example of how the world is declining rapidly." My personal biases and values notwithstanding, I have somewhat revised this reaction in response to 1) reading the rest of the article; and 2) sustained contemplation on said article.

First, let me explain my initial negative reaction. Composing on cell phones just seems absurd to me; this might be because I hate my cell phone and the ever-exponentially-increasing dependence and value our society places on them. I'm also at a loss on how one could compose on a cell phone, though the article does a decent job of explaining that. To me, the issue has a lot to do with the relationship to the medium, I guess; that is, I view my phone as strictly utilitarian at best, which precludes any inspirational or creative endeavor emerging from this annoying piece of technology.

Another reason for my negative reaction has more to do with the ways this affects writing and reading habits rather than the sheer ubiquity of the phone. As a composition teacher, I find myself constantly lamenting that my students don't read; even more often, I lament that students today have little familiarity with the act of composing/writing itself. Their access is limited, and their desire to remedy these limitations remains that much more limited. I realize here that I am sounding like a snarky, conservative grandmother, who wants grammar to be taught in writing classrooms in lieu of more liberal pursuits. This is not my intent; and this brings me to the next point I wish to make, which relates to the reasons why we should consider cell phone novels as legitimate writing.

The pivotal moment in the article for me was when the author explained that budding cell-phone novelists were compelled to write because of the phone. That is, they weren't looking for a medium to express themselves; the cell phone itself -- with the text messaging and email -- inspired them to write "novels" on the phone, adopting the conventions of text messaging. The reason this struck me is because I have such a different relationship to writing. For me, the desire to write came first, then I searched for media. More significantly, it forced me to re-think my relationship to texts, the composing process, and what we consider "legitimate" writing, particularly in the context of a program such as UWM's First-Year writing.

My qualms have not entirely disappeared, however. While I do recognize that it is "better" for students (?) to be reading something --even what I might consider shoddily written and melodramatic novels -- instead of reading nothing at all; at the same time I wonder what it's doing to their ability to read more challenging texts. On the one hand, this statement presupposes a value on texts and intellectual knowledge that is highly problematic and elitist (at best). On the other hand, however, my own biases still win out, as I am approaching this from a cognitive and developmental perspective. If students get used to composing cell-phone novels, for example, they become accustomed to reading novels that respond to their writing habits -- as the article recounts. I'm concerned with the way that writing in this way inhibits their ability to compose more understandable, developed writing and thoughts.

These novels should be considered a viable genre of reading and writing, undoubtedly, but for me the real issue is just that: genre. That is, if students are exposed to other forms and genres of writing as genres and or possibilities for writing, they can then see how their thinking is informed by their daily (writing) habits. Just as is stated at the close of the article, the cell-phone novelist who turned to computer composing was writing longer, more complex sentences (and thus expressing more complex ideas as well), this kind of experience is necessary for students to gain access and ownership of various genres. This, in turn, permits them to have greater flexibility in how they communicate as well as think about the world.

Perhaps I'm spinning my rhetorical and pedagogical wheels here, in the sense that this article has nothing to do with students at all, or their intellectual development. But, I confess that my reading of the very end of the article suggests that something is largely amiss when social and cultural phenomena like novels composed on cell phones dominate intellectual and critical development.