"always on," which looks at how mobile technologies are influencing the way we write or read come to speak of. this interview is conducted at american university in washington d.c.

>> fs or trade to come the technology is changing how we communicate. >> guest: yes and no. there's this assumption that the tape knowledge she had computers and mobile phones are changing the ways we write to each other because we're supposedly using abbreviations and acronyms and emoticons. if you're a young teenage girl you're using a blog. there may be a handful of these kinds of shorthand and emoticons commonly used. not nearly as many as the press would have you believe. what is changing is the way you read, the ways we write. i'll tell you what they mean by that in a second. our social relationships are changing incredibly and i'm going to suggest our personal individual psyches are changing.

so let's start with how we read. it's pretty clear is what you read things on the screen, whether it's a laptop or even reader for tablet computer or mobile phone company don't go quite this family as you do when you read a hard copy. in fact, that's the subject of my next book. but what we know already is you tend to skim or worse to use the find function comes here when i'm just a word and you look at that little snippet of what has been written in the north the rest of the content. what we know from a kite in a good psychologist is that you read irregular web age, you don't go zip, zip, zip, you do

an out pattern. the first line of text you read an excellent little less on by the time you get to the bottom, forget about putting anything in the lower right-hand corner. other people say it's not exactly the pattern, but it's scattered. >> where did that term from? >> guest: declines how a f is made. so we know the kind of reading when it's continuous text is different what were doing over surfing the web. but if you're reading the same kind of device for surfing the web, you tend to read whether it's withering heights of the biology test book with the newspaper, we tend to repeat the same lines that the things we scanned through for the term

power browsing to describe how we actually read. how do we write? because we are not reading a lot of continuous text, we are writing shorter and shorter things. what they'll tell you is we don't want the 90,000, 100,000 were looks like the one i wrote. we want the shorter staff. a lot of publishers come out with things like stanford shorts. this is something that 30,000, 40,000 words. stephen king is coming out with shorter things that he sells for 99 cents earnings on the changes we do we and therefore the notions of what it means to write because her readers that reading a lot of stuff. there's other changes coming out of tape polity. remember spellcheck?

are changing our notions of whether we care. people use these to knowledge is actually study the punctuation. i did a study of the messaging, for example. people don't care about that? if you have to send this come up with that. and not after the last sentence because it beyond. these are patterns for years, just not which you were taught in school. >> host: computer programs are also automatically put in. one of the things that's happened is searching in our notion of what it means to be an author. these new computer technologies,

whether it's on the cell phone, ipod or make a nice rate a great deal more. but we'll so have greater sense that people don't really care if we make mistakes. we're no longer judged as host of forget the punctuation or spelling wrong or make a grammatical mistake because the assumption is you we don't want than it's gone. we don't feel this is doable, tangible, long-lasting text that will come back and say wait a second. >> host: professor baron, the book is "always on." what about the whatever generation? >> guest: at the termites come up with a consistent teaching universities for a good long time and have to listen to

students not so much now but a few years back keep saying we need to ask the question. whatever. doesn't founder. you would say what you want for lunch? i don't care, whatever. that is the attitude developing in a lot of writing. namely, we don't think it matters how we rate. a 92 costs. i'm sorry. so what do i mean it doesn't matter? if you don't believe somebody is going to read what you write it down, then you make mistakes and it's okay. but it gets tastier. it used to be argued there were standard. you could talk about spelling as well and who you were and how you're perceived by other people dependent upon if you use

grammar correctly. to store enough to tell us when i first started teaching, you'd need a social occasions and it's had better watch my grammar. they don't say that to me anymore. they say that school because we have a sense the rules of language don't matter. so if you want to say everyone raised -- what is the rate that goes with hand? their hand? we want a singular. as a linguist, i was raised to believe that there are these rules of language. a minute gnome chomsky who got us thinking about how to talk about what people know, linguistic competence. so i know everybody who is a

native speaker of a language has a level of confidence, knows the difference between what's grammatical and what not and this is what we worked with for many decades. so people would care whether it's everybody raised their hand for everybody raised his hand for her hand, but when you actually talk with people, they say whatever, why are you so hung up on this? and 90 good as the next step and say okay for the record, which one is correct? i don't know. so this whole model we've had of what counts as knowledge, whether it's a standard language or dialect doesn't matter, your way of speaking and training people don't care as much is because language has become far more informal to rewrite the way

we speak rather than having a different register. we're much more writing the movie speak became increasingly infernally and it doesn't matter to us anymore. new technologies for communicating command instant messages and the chats of the blogs are great avenues for not caring because you think nobody's going to come look at this again anyway. >> host: professor baron, do you attach a value judgment to the way the read and write? >> guest: of course i don't attach judgment. language changes. but here's where we need to think. if you don't have a love of the language, and appreciation for possibility, and appreciation for no one comments what could i

do that's different than the way anyone also said that, then you lose out on something as a raider of the language. one of the problems is her writing so much, we write and write and that's great, but then we said in about to ask any professional writer. how many classes to chico to? 12% of you -- thanks ask him even important things and feel it doesn't matter. then there's the question of what it means to be a reader. if you are reading "moby dick" on your mobile phone when you're waiting for the match her to come. the rating for the board. with its looking for facebook updates are reading "the new

york times" are reading a novel, a lot of that is to avoid other people. they sometimes pretend to speak. americans do have more than anyone else. so if people have the notion that reading is an entity rather than seeking to think about it and you're by yourself. if you underline, draw pictures of a comically, people aren't out in libraries. they're not going back to the table and spread, but they bought it and say really should go back. it's staring at me. if you got it on your kindle, if you go back and say what hasn't i read. the whole relationship that reading is a worry is changing his devices make it less easy

for us to have them upon and for us to reflect down. >> host: professor can't be touched on this, but is being always on changing human interaction? >> guest: unfortunately you bet you. i tell a story in the book that to me is very emblematic of what the problems are. the stories about the amish. the amish in this case in lancaster, pennsylvania. an interview is done with an honest gentleman about the fact that the amish do not allow telephone in their house. these days because they do business they may have a place like a nice house repeat the mobile phone that's not allowed in the house. why not? is a the gentleman who was interviewed said if we had a

phone take precedence over a face-to-face relationship, his words, what kind of people would we become that we care about something more that's not what this is the person who is with us. when we see it over and over again in the studies we do is let say you and i are walking on the street chatting and your phone rings say take the call or get the bus knowing you got the text. we know the other person is left out. we know these kinds of devices have a lot of social problems attached to them. what is that we can do at devices whether it's on a computer, i am, mobile phone or face but come you can do people. so if i don't want gdc the away message and putting up. this is the real story of a

student who didn't want his mom to see if something messages. she would worry. you can block people. you can do control the volume. on what your level of communication as a people. on facebook i can befriend you. and face-to-face relationships that were locked on the street and there you are and i don't want to see you on my cross to the other side of the street and you might pay naomi, hello and i have to learn socially to deal with this. with new technology were able to block people in various ways and i worry the social impact has upon us. i also worry the fact we feel we must be connected to people. my students worry if they haven't gotten back to someone immediately, maybe they'll be shown from the social circle.

you don't get to go to dinner because he didn't answer fast enough. many of them filter them that they must be a although they'll tell you they don't want to be. this is not good for individuals. post on macos x or safety. we want to be trained for or we don't want to be always on feel compelled? >> guest: we feel conflicted. part of the problem is we to recognize always been available to others or do something to distract yourself is not necessarily good thing. i was giving a lecture at the group of students taking a course on digital digital citizenship sinise will heavily wired students. most of them have a computer, laptop or ipod. i was writing about the article about facebook.

i got them into groups and ask questions of one another. one of the questions i posed was if he were teaching a class today, if you're in class today, would you want your student to be able to use these technologies class? and they said no. even the one who had computers in front of them said no. because were so distract it. but not paying attention to it happening away without doing is something our minds so they go insert and checkers dataset dates and read old text messages even though we don't care about them because were not able to focus on what they got it time and that's not good for us even though they were the ones doing it. >> host: what is your rule when it comes to electronic devices in class? >> guest: i have a cement

mason of my colleagues because i have a policy, no tele- technology. the creators, i don't care what the tablet is. no mobile phones. so students say to me you weren't sure how to spell this word. there's people who have the names i.e. i may not get it right. and they could look it up. i don't care. finicky or the the publication run a knife at 1963 and a 64, all corrected next class. but i want to is how the conversation. what i've shared minds thinking together. but i will tell you is that the two americanization of the association of internet research. those sort of mobile phone issues. there is a conversation that by now what do you do in your class

this? it's amazing the number of people who do research on these. i say to my students the reason i can do this to say no to much about them. gamelan let's talk. >> host: train to come with the new technologies, first of all, is there any historical trends that are similar to today's technology? >> guest: but start with one question. are we using technologies to distract them? to save us from loneliness, should fill the time, to kill time. one of the most common reasons people use their phones is to kill time because they don't want anything else in their mind. so studies were done in the 1950s on talk radio.

it relates to what's happening. but one of the questions. if you do psychological profiles of people listening to talk radio, the people who are the only looking for communication, but not so close and had it themselves. wingnut these devices can be used for those functions. another simple example in the notion of loneliness are being allowed. a study by clifford mass at stanford university and a student data to a group gross looking half a few social networking. what he found is the people who do the most amount of social networking, the most amount of multitasking. were together but not really tend to have the lowest

self-esteem, tended to have the low self-confidence. this is an interesting piece he added to study. if you're a 12-year-old girl who would look in the eyes of people you're talking with, because it's really hard for teenagers and preteens and a lot of adults who might, but if you could look people how it compensates for a social networking you did and he didn't end up having correlational at those self-esteem. what we know is technologies can attract people who may already not have the greatest self-esteem, and it's nothing different. it's just a new technology as a way of distract him. >> host: were basically with the first generation raised in tires with computers in

telephone. are you finding it different in competency of students? at a more informed, less informed? >> guest: there's someone who works at google and esa concept he calls the pharmacy. he believes education needs to be cared. a lot of people in lower and higher education are essentially the same thing that we should be spending our first teaching people how to find stuff, how to find information. this is different from knowing things. so if i took all the electricity away and there's a blackout, yet no electricity for weaker to me can ask my students if your devices don't work, what do you know? the answer is they'll tell me not much because i need to be a defined as.

studies done by psychologists in which she said if you ask people to do a google search and later you ask them what they found, they're better at remembering how they thought the search path and they are remembering the content. someone if it happens to bless google, i couldn't live without it. what it's doing is redefining what it means to know. if you students raised not just because it ologies, people in education say we should learn how to do things. one should be part of the 21st century generation so we raising a generation of people to believe what matters is you can find it. not what you know about how you analyze an argument. not ur.

that worries me. >> host: what is your view on wikipedia? >> guest: wikipedia, we know there's various academics to say over my dead body. wikipedia is a fascinating thing. i did an analysis of the growth of encyclopedias, why encyclopedias came to be in the first place. initially the explosion of knowledge in western europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and people couldn't read everything sit encyclopedias came out that one of the common man to be able to come in but not for that, thank you. wikipedia has been very, very helpful. why do i use this? when i put in a search term, thanks to collaboration between

wells and google, wikipedia is the first hit. it gives me ideas and since this is what i have to do research on. the question is if any kind of research, do you stop there and say that deal, or do you say is learned something but now i need to go in the problem is lots of in-depth learning and the lack of motivation and saying i could read it on a good. why do we have libraries? so many say you need to either read it as their e-book or some kind of a file and the problem with that is release the contemplation, the hands-on of laying out ibooks and saying this will case. this one seems to say something very different.

what i know about the authors? this is what we train students to do. technology is not helping a with that kind of teaching to our judgment and therefore society stature meant. o-oscar naomi baron, who is studying the elastics today? >> guest: this is a very blood question. as a linguist i will tell you the term is so different depending which individual are talking with, which institution, which country. we studies of grammar and language. probably the biggest topic today is endangered languages. how many are there on merit? it depends what languages. 6000. how many languages are dying every day meaning they're no longer any living speakers of the language?

people to project in 50 years from now will have 6000 languages. for all kinds of social and political and economic potential, speaking a language doesn't seem worth it. so children are not learning languages. if you go to meetings where there's lots of sessions on what do we do about endangered life? another big issue is is there a lingua franca, the language of the frogs, but what it really means is one language that pretty much we share amongst ourselves. it is said that used to be that. then in the 18th century it was french. the chairmen were chairman, but actually was french. and then it became english because of the british empire

and particularly after what one in world war ii. a lot of people are asking -- by the way, people who speak different varieties of english around the world. should the are americans become once to tell you how they should speak or should people be able to time the languages they wished themselves. a lot of the vocabulary is different. sure that people have their own autonomy but the way they speak? this is another big issue because it gets into social rate. are you going to tommy because they speak a version of english that's not real enough and that i have to do at a particular way? the whole movement towards whatever, moving towards cultural diversity has been with since i'm not going to ditch her

accent. 30 years ago we judged accents a lot. we don't judge grammatical mistakes the way they used to. so how that's going to play out in terms of grammar rules come standards will be one of the interesting things we love to see. >> host: has the instantaneous sabean always unchanged as? >> guest: it's glad to insecurity i talked about earlier and in some ways is a misnomer. that suggests you're going to respond immediately. the so-called synchronous communication. if you are running eight or 12 i am chats, but if you're doing six or eight or 10 at the same time, you do want and then another and then another.

if you set the reason so bad is because first and to stuff out. particularly if you're a teenage girl. i realize you're not, but you get togetherness that says i can't do some guy asked the missus are going to respond. what do you think? they sit there and and added before it was once comes. we don't take this instant they have had ways of requesting insecurities. if i send an e-mail that i want an answer right away to somebody and i get a right away, i may be unhappy, but the person has a great two way. i send an im to someone and they don't respond, doesn't matter which type ologies i buy used,

the has the right. so what's changed since i wrote this book? more and more people are beginning to understand this problem to always be on. see tape work of somebody like nicholas carr and then the book to show those pdt april at william powers are with this powerful play called hamlets black. when you have to find time to do we miss. one of the right kinds of social interactions. you take people enter is the end of the book starts wondering, do we have had to be reading this rather than sitting down in your house three-time ingredient what kind of people have we become quite a lot of businesses now saying there's not e-mailing friday's because i want you to get some work done.

it's better for your soul and better for a bottom line. you take the book undistracted. more and more people started to recognize as they did 10 years ago that this may not be good for us here where this will go, i don't know. that to me at least at the beginning. >> host: which devices to you on and do you turn them off? >> guest: i have a laptop, and i patted. my husband is a couple of the readers which i borrow once in a while. i have no sense of place of where i am. i don't want to have a 150 page book before hundred pages because that's what they are and the kindle. and i have a mobile phone. beastie joke in my family that my mobile phone was always

turned off and that was and it still is. the only reason i turn it on as the iphone takes a lot to warm up, so i don't have it out. i only use it when i need it. people say don't you study this stuff? don't you know, don't you care? i say it's because i stuff that i want my sense of equanimity. she realize how long humankind has lived without having these devices? if there's some emergency, i'll wait. it's probably okay. how come find me. i don't need to live that way and i have a much better blood pressure as a result. >> host: trained to, are you seeing changes in your student in the way they communicate with you in the classroom, looking in the eye, talking with you, talking with each other?

>> guest: this started out almost 10 years ago. faculty members are supposed to have office hours. a lot of office hours. jo cruz to seiyu if we feel like the lovely in a tech repairmen. these are ads were so great to repairmen never have any business. students that come into office hours because they can e-mail you 24/7. some people use im, text. they don't have to show it. they do however to get an answer immediately. if i get an e-mail from someone at 2:00 in the morning saying i'm not clear about this assignment. if i wait until monday to respond, when my student evaluations come, does not respond to students.

so one of the big changes as they don't physically show what. a second big changes there's an expectation structure that's different and as much about the timeliness is that the response he served as a total lack of understanding that if you talk with someone face-to-face come in the same issue teaching courses online. there's things that have been in exchange between people that wouldn't happen if i'm tightening or if i'm only hearing your voice or even if there's a video on the online course. it's a different dynamic in that i think is a new dynamic in the fact that it's being practiced to the detriment of students because i don't have a chance to come up with the ati would have by looking at the disappointment or something else going on but has nothing to do with what you're talking about to stop you from doing your assignment. i can't do that unless i'm with

you. so those are changes i see. >> host: finally in your book, "always on," you asked the question, how much of the blame for personal cognitive and social change associated with new language tools really can be laid at the feet of technologies themselves quite >> guest: lodestar respond punctuation because a simple example of what i believe is the key. i students are lousy in terms of punctuation. they haven't a clue what to do with this; or: in comments sprinkled them with pepperoni caesar salad. it's not their fault. a lot of them say i relied on spell check. if you go kindergarten through high school, does anyone focus

on spelling? now, because the faculties right-thinking ain't to be focusing on other things to be a modern faculty member. i shouldn't be so persnickety. but if we don't teach these things it's not the students fall. if we change our expert patient of our goals in education instead of reflecting, instead of being by yourself and then came instead of reading for a long period of time with no distractors, for instance on know how do it, it's not the technology slope. someone in my nature concerns is how much we should take the blame in a june the blame. another issue is whether it's helping in society. it's not the type knowledge of its doing it. if social change which were better or worse in the direction. take for example proofreading.

there are many come in many instances are people paid huge amounts of money. i talk with my colleagues in journalism. i know a full-page ad costs are at the i did when i last asked. i know that books published want to have great. i compare what they see with what i saw 20 years ago and the professionals care less. okay the professionals care less, why shouldn't laypeople care less? it's okay for them. i guess it should be okay for me. it's not that elegy. social change, social attitude. post we've been talking at the american university trained to who teaches linguistics and is the author of a couple books. growing up with language and our newest, "always on: language in an online and mobile world." once again you're working on a

new book? esca im keyword sunscreen: the fate of reading in a digital world. >> host: you are watching the tv on c-span 2. >> next, max paul friedman on his book "rethinking anti-americanism." >> host: professor max paul friedman, author of "rethinking anti-americanism," why do they hate us? >> guest: that's a good question. americans have been asking that the since 1899 as they discovered that looking at old copies of "the new york times." we asked it to 20th century and as it turns out first of all they don't hate us if we think about world opinions. the united states and fight since he said the event of scientific polling in the 1920s and 3