Here is my complete essay, sorry it's so late.

The internet is shaping our lives from all directions. We use it to manage our checkbooks, read about local news, play games, and to socialize with each other. Our lives are beginning to become centered on the web. We go to it for entertainment and work. We rely on it for communication. However, the more we use the internet the more it changes us and our way of thinking. As we use the internet more and more as a way to collect and transfer information, the reading and writing styles of most of us is changing so that the information we collect and share is no longer in depth and only scratches the surface of a topic as seen in the length of the articles we read and write such as blogs and news pieces.
Let’s focus on our reading styles as we surf the web. Who reads more than the first part of an article? Who reads the whole thing? Not to many of us will. The reason is because we can’t stay focused on something for that long. We just want to see the jest of whatever we are reading. We no longer read for entertainment, yet we read so that we can collect as much information as possible. We are literate but illiterate at the same time. We can read the text word for word and gain the literal meaning that it poses on us, however, usually there is a hidden message, whether subliminal or textually, that we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend the message not only cause we don’t read the whole article sometimes, but also the fact that we are not capable to do so because we are somewhat illiterate. As Hedge’s article stated, most people read at a fourth grade level. The ability to understand in text meanings really isn’t developed until well into high school. One of the main reasons for our lack of ability to read at a higher level is because of what we do read. Most news articles and pieces in the news papers are written at a fourth grade level. This includes most of anything we read on the internet. Most well known writers writing blogs and articles that are well known will write at this level too. The reason is, and I’m stating this from my opinion and logic, because they are appealing to an everyday audience. They want to be able to appeal to the most people possible, and if they write in a very complex manner, not too many ordinary people will be able to understand it and won’t read it. Writing is a game of appeals. You need to focus on your ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos establish the writer’s credibility, logos the subject’s credibility and your pathos appeal to the audience. The good writers establish pathos by writing at a simpler level. They appeal to their audience because the audience doesn’t have to think as much. The audience doesn’t have to deal with complex thought. Now they probably much rather be watching TV or something than reading. I think we mostly love to read on the internet because we get the choice of what we are going to read. I know that throughout my schooling career so far I have hated to read. I really have. Now I’m not going to say I completely hate reading but I think the biggest thing is when I’m forced to do it. I have read plenty of books throughout my career, most I have not liked. There have been a few that I have enjoyed, but truly these books consisted of simple diction and a great plot line. When I had to read something that was more complex and had a great plot but a lot of the meaning in the plot was hidden, I didn’t like the book. Now most people that do read on the internet obviously choose what they read, however they don’t go and read Charles Dickens or Shakespeare. They got read simple blogs that everyday people have written. They read what their friend went and wrote as their status on face book. They read very simple articles that consist of simple diction choices so that they don’t have to work to read. Our reading habits really haven’t changed that much in my eyes though. Instead of reading the newspaper for enjoyment, most rather sit down in front of their computer and read the paper online. As Americans, we haven’t been known for being the most intelligent people in the world but rather for our ability to do hard work. We work hard. There is no doubt about it, but we do a lot of physical labor and never work our minds to hard. And we don’t like to work our minds because after years of intense schooling being forced to work for what seems like no reward, we will give up on it. This is exactly what we did for reading too. It’s easy to work at a job when every week or two a check shows up in your hands. Our reading habits on the internet emphasize our need as Americans for a reward for the work we do, and our desire to do as little as possible to get this reward. Just like we read simple and minimal articles on the internet so that we can get as much information as possible without doing a lot of work, we write in a similar fashion.
Now me personally, I rather write than read. Now I don’t know if it’s because I like to express my ideas or just that fact I like to argue sometimes. I like controversy and argumentation. When I wrote in High School my teacher always would yell at me because any paper I would write I would turn into a qualifying piece. Now this doesn’t sound like the point I made earlier about doing little work for the most gain. I have to ask this though, what was your favorite subject in school and how well did you do in it? I bet any subject needs work, however when it was a favorite, you didn’t feel like it was a job or was work. It came easier to you. So I wrote everything as a qualifying piece because it was easier to me and I didn’t feel like I was working as hard to complete the piece. Now this essay I’m writing now is very difficult to me, I have worked hard on it but have not put an excellent piece together. Most of the sentences in this piece alone are simple, along with the diction. I write at a very simple level, the same most people would. This is also because my almost hatred for academic reading. My knowledge base hasn’t been developed to the point where I can write a great paper but I can function. I am literate but as stated in the piece “Equity and Literacy in the Next Millennium” building upon a student’s knowledge base facilitates their learning which leads to higher rate of literacy. Basically, the more they know the better they will do. Because I hated reading, my vocabulary never flourished. I know I’m talking about my writing a lot and I’m sorry to do that but the reason I am doing that is because I feel that my writing represents most of America’s. It’s full of very simple wording and sentencing. We as a nation of writers do this all the time. I don’t care who is writing. It could be a great writer or just any old person off the street. The writing is going to be very simple. It’s so that most everybody can understand it. The writing most of the time will also be, as I like to put it, short and to the point. My big philosophy when writing is to say what I need to, back up my opinion, and then end the piece. Writing on the internet is short and to the point because nobody wants to read six pages of repetition and flowery words. We as writers recognize that our audience doesn’t want a novel when they read a piece. As Andrea Lunsford states in Clive Thompson’s piece, we write for our audience. Our writing has adapted to our audience and what they want to read. Our writing style has changed a lot because of our audience is now everyday people on the internet. Even though our reading habits haven’t changed as we surf the World Wide Web, our writing has because of our new audience and our ability to display our work to them.
Most of all, the internet has changed how we write. We can post articles of writing on the internet and allow the world to see them. We write to an audience that doesn’t want to read an exponential amount of material in order to gain a little information. As readers, we have pushed this onto the writers. It’s a cause, effect thing. We have not changed as readers, however as the internet expands and we are able to read more and more pieces, the writers have adjusted their style so that they can reach out to the broadest audience possible. The internet is changing our writing habits to fit the poor reading habits that we all have within us.