Computers and Languages

Last Saturday the Guardian ran an interesting article about a current trend of criticism of social networking technologies (e.g. websites such as Twitter and Facebook).  Read the article here The arguments include claims that social networking makes us lazier, less able to digest large quantities of information, and less human than we were before. An example of this is where we go into a cafe and find people sitting at their laptops or tapping away on their mobile devices, whilst not actually talking to the people around them. So in effect, we ignore the real people around us, and focus instead on communicating through our electronic devices. Those who disagree with these arguments state that social networking actually increases communication and helps us bridge geographical distances. They also argue that the idea that, before the new technologies existed, people used to chat with those around them is actually not true. So the question is, did people really used to chat...

Well, it's about 2 years since I set up this blog. As you can see, it is very slim on content and rather neglected. The funny thing is, the Blogger interface has changed since I first set this one up. It seems to evolve all the time, which I guess is a good thing! I haven't by any means explored all of the features and functions, but I'm sure it's capable of doing quite a lot. Two years ago, I also set up a small  Google site , just to see what I could do with this easy-to-use environment. Of course, one needs a Google account to set up a Blogger blog and a Google site. Is this a good thing?

David Crystal (2001, vii) cites a comment made by Tim Berners-Lee that: "The web is more a social creation than a technical one." What do you think this comment means? Write your comment using the 'comments' link below.

This blog is a place to experiment with blogs for language learning.