Clifford Nass response to All

All,
One of the problems with judgments about the effects of media is that there is little systematic evidence.

For example, there is a great deal of discussion about whether
writing has changed, including the notion of "killer paragraphs" vs.
sustained writing. I have looked for systematic study of this question,
and cannot find anything.

Happily, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford is coming to the rescue. During this quarter, my lab will get the detailed grading of 90 students for three writing assignments. Independently, I will be measuring the students' level of chronic multitasking. This will hopefully enable us to at least have strong evidence to answer the question: "Do students who chronically multitask write differently than those who don't?"

It is a separate question whether the differences in writing are good or bad; that's not a question addressable by social science.

I think that it's very important to distinguish between statements which are provable (within the constraints of social science) and value judgments about whether the proven statements are good or bad or both for society. The issue of whether people read or write differently because of media is demonstrably true or false; what we should do about it and how we should feel about it are hugely important but also different.

I'll keep you all informed as these results come in, hopefully within the next couple of weeks.

Take care,
Cliff