Typically when you hear people talk about the internet, they say it is bad for your brain and your well-being. In Clive Thompson’s “Public Thinking”, Thompson proposes the opposite. Thompson argues the increase in public writing made possible by the internet has important effects on thought, knowledge-sharing, culture, and politics.Clive Thompson is a writer for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Wired, he typically writes about technology and its impact on our society and culture. Thompson argues the increase in public writing made possible by the internet has important effects on thought, knowledge-sharing, culture, and politics.

Knowing about the effects of the internet is important because it is being introduced to all aspects of our lives: from our social life to our school and work. The internet is a regular occurrence now that we barely remember how the internet has completely changed our lives, especially when it comes to how much we write and how often we write. It is also good to know that there are many beneficial things connected with the internet when you only hear the bad things connected with it.

In this paper, I will talk about Thompson’s main claim, the evidence he uses, his rebuttals, and the strengths and weaknesses of Thompson’s argument. The three main claims I will be addressing are: writing changes how we think, writing for an audience improves your writing, and people with similar interests connecting through the internet will produce more discoveries.  

Thompson insists that writing has many benefits including improves memory and clear thinking, which changes how we think. Thompson believes that writing boosts memory. He uses the “generation effect” to prove his claim. A study from 1978 compared whether writing and reading improved memory and it indicated that writing “requires more cognitive effort than reading.” Meaning that writing improves memory because writing something you generate yourself makes your brain harder than reading. He also gives an example of college students using this for their benefit. To show that people use it all the time and it works for real people. Thompson claims that by forcing yourself to write something down you are forced to defend your position and fully understand your topic before you start to write on it. He uses the concept of “hand waving” to prove that, in person you may not need to know exactly what you are talking about because you can use hand movements to pretend like you know what you are talking about, but if you were to write a controversial blog post with the concept of hand waving people wouldn’t be persuaded and tare what you wrote into pieces in the comment section. By not being able to hand wave you have to know what you are talking about so you must clarify your thinking. Thompson uses a study and the concept of hand waving to convince his audience that writing can change way people think. I think that these two points are on the weaker side because he references an old study and mentions that since you can use hand motions to persuade people in person it is weaker than writing your argument when it may be just as good.