One thing that I have noticed about my generation of individuals is that we talk a lot. Rather, we write a lot, yet struggle especially hard to articulate what we really mean. In the documentary we saw in class, Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s choice to reach for a quill to write a speech initially struck me as bizarre for obvious reasons. His justification, however, made me consider how little value we tend to give to written words now that we have the technology to produce them in mass quantities. We are given prompts and assignments (like this one) with word requirements, and rather than use that space to concisely develop a complex idea, we tend to fill the page with fluff and cliches.
Tyson makes the decision to write a speech with a quill because he is limited. The quill only allows him to write few words at a time, so he must make a conscious effort to choose which words are important. Because the process is much slower than typing on a keyboard, he has more time to collect his thoughts as he writes them down. The words that have made it to the page would possess greater purpose because they were chosen to convey a specific message (or feeling) rather than to simply fill a page with words. Though it seems impractical, it might serve as a great brainstorming technique to help us discover what we really want to say before we attempt to say it.
I agree with your notion that this generation talks a great deal, but doesn’t have a lot to say. The quickness of speech and linguistics has propelled rapidly in recent years, and people are losing patience along with it. I cannot count how many times I’ve received a text message from a friend with so many typos that the message became incoherent. Our ability to write language down so rapidly has changed our thought process, making writing as you say it, more “cliché” and full of “fluff.” I believe people can learn a grand sum of information from Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s writing utensil choice. The action may have seen bizarre–and a tad comical at first–but the action itself is loaded with deeper meanings, allowing beneficial information to be obtained. Maybe I should show my friends that clip to improve their texting at least a little bit.