Online Chats

In this same writing class at James Madison University we also broke into groups of about four students each and conducted online conversations. During this online conversation we were suppose to talk about information that we were going over in class. Topics such as how technology affects our abilities to write and remember. For instance, in Plato’s Phaedrus the topic arises that with the new technology of their time, writing, memory will no longer be as necessary for people to become intelligent.

The argument in this piece is that since students of Plato’s day needed to memorize all text that they believed that they would need in the future. In today’s world however we have the ability to write down information for future reference, as well as the internet that provides vast amounts of written information at the click of the button. This propels the belief we no longer need to use our memories as we use to.

During the online chat that we conducted we concluded that while we no longer need to memorize everything as we once needed to, the technology of writing that was new to Plato has truly revolutionized the world. Take a minute to think about how this world would be different without reading. You would no longer have computers, books, TV, video games etc.

We also took note of how conversations tended to overlap each other. As well as, move much faster than typical face to face conversations. The conclusion that my group came to was that these types of online conversations are great for talking to friends or even a couple of fellow students or co-workers, however it seems that if many more than four or so people in an online conversation at a time tends to lead to the conversation losing its meaning, and people can then become confused more easily.