Facebook Literacy

           To me, communication and literacy are basically the same thing. Facebook and MySpace are one of the many social networking tools that teens use to communicate. Many spend most of their day browsing other teen’s profiles and updating their own. After all, having a cool profile page and lots of friends is very important in showing off your cyber social status. I don’t like to boast, but Tila Tequila accepted me as her friend on MySpace. I leave her comments fairly often and I’m hoping that one day she will actually reply!   Although she has almost 1,000,000 friends, I’m convinced she visits my profile often. We have never had a real conversation but I read her bulletins all the time. I know she is always aware of my updated status and I am positive that’s why she never comments. I myself have about 200 friends. I have only had real conversations with about 50 of them, the rest are people I have spoken to once or twice in my life. Of course I have many other music and movie stars, in addition to Tila Tequila. They are really good at keeping in touch withme thru bulletins. Being constantly made aware of my friends status updates such as, “I am going to an awesome party tonight”, or “Today was such a good day”, puts me ahead of the crowd. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t know what my friends were doing every minute of every day. Like everything else, there are some downsides to MySpace and Facebook. The biggest problem I have encountered is what to do when someone I know, but don’t like adds me as a friend. I occasionally get friend requests from strange people who I met once, but am glad I have never seen again. The problem occurs when they add me as a friend and I don’t want to accept them. Not accepting a person is another way of telling them you don’t like them. However, if you accept them you risk having a long and awkward conversation with someone you don’t like. I guess this is just a problem you have to overcome when maintaining your virtual life.

Sticking to the Theme

      A theme is an idea that is proven throughout a novel, essay, poem, or really any type of literature. It is the reasoning behind a writers efforts- to convey a point to the reader in order to pursuay them into giving this idea thought even if they disagree with it. Have you ever read something where the writer goes on and on and jumps from different points. This tends to get messy and can confuse a reader as well as draw them away from the theme of the piece of literature. Not just in writing, but in conversation as well it is always important to support a "grand theme" or idea so that everything you say backs up this idea and has you feeling confident and convincing about the statement you are trying to make. For example, you are writing a report on why president Obama is the best president in United States history. It would not be a good idea to go on and on about his contributions to his wife and kids because that does not support the grand theme. Sure, it makes him look like a great individual and father, but that is not what you are writing the paper about; your writing it about his presidency. On task, on might talk about his involvement in Iraq or his policy of on shore oil drilling, but never about his family because then one will lose track of their purpose in writing the report and will drift too far from the main theme and lose a reader. That brings up another point that just because as a writer you feel that you know where you are headed in writing literature/conversation that does not mean that your reader/listener will find your arguments insignificant and lose the level of devotion they once had for your ideas. These are some of the reasons why it is always strategic to stick to the theme.