Warren Writing 10A

"Identity and the Internet"

Course Description

Debates about if and how technology changes who we are as humans are nothing new. Increasingly, though, experts are interested in how new tecnologies like the internet affect our individual identity, society and the envrionment. Today our interaction with the world around us is increasingly mediated through cell phone calls and text messages, online social networks, e-mail and blogging. Despite the fact that the internet has only been in widespread public use for fewer than twenty years, it has become an integral part of our daily lives. According to a recent Stanford University study, the average American spends close to 3 1/2 hours a day online. While computers clearly do many things for us, this course will examine arguments about what they do to us.

Among experts who study the effects new technologies have on identity, there is a disagreement about even the most fundamental questions. What is the "self"? Is it a fixed identity or do we have multiple identities that depend on social context? Does the internet affect the way we construct our "self"? For us, the disagreements and even confusion are an opportunity. When experts disagree, particularly experts from very different fields, arguments become visible and hence easier to understand.

Because argument is central to good academic work, scholars and scientists are expected to support their conslusions with good reasons and relevant evidence. In this course, we can only offer quick glimpses into some aspects of the debate about identity and the internet. But in a larger sense, these arguments -- as arguments -- are the real point of the course, and evaluating and responding to them in writing will be the focus of our three major assignments. Because of this strong emphasis on argument, students will be introduced to the Toulmin model of argumentation (based on claims, grounds, warrants, backing and qualifiers) to help them summarize, analyze and write academic arguments.

"The internet has made possible entirely new forms of social interaction, activities and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access." --Wikipedia

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end." -- Henry David Thoreau

Author Websites (click on names below for more information)

Kenneth J. Gergen

Jaron Lanier

Bruno Latour

Sherry Turkle