Research Questions

1. How does technology affect the way we write?
Responses:
- "It has made people less articulate. They are so used to abbreviations and emojis that they lack the vocabulary of people my age"- My Dad
- " I feel like we write and communicate informally. Our vocabulary is mostly made up of slang and I feel like that is reflected in our writing."- Alex, my friend
- "It has made things a lot easier"- Colby, my roommate

2. How has sports journalism changed in the digital age?
Responses:
- "The newspaper has become less important. When I was growing up, everything game from the newspaper. Scores, trades, articles, everything. You'd get highlights on the news, but now everything is happening instantly. ESPN is sending out stories as they happen, and there are 30 different channels dedicated solely to sports."- Dad
- "Sports journalism has changed drastically. Most of us get our sports updates via social media, online news sites, and quick alerts on our phone. The modern "sports section" in the newspaper is becoming more and more obsolete. I also feel like there are a lot more TV personalities"- Alex
- "It is easier to post about topics, so there are more voices than ever. You don't need to work for a newspaper or ESPN to make your thoughts known"- Colby

3. Has Twitter altered the way people write?
Responses:
- "It's made them worse. They are Tweeting out nonsense and I think it has to make you a worse writer. It certainly hasn't made anyone better"- Dad
- "Twitter has changed the media landscape drastically. I would argue Twitter is the main platform in which most people our age receive news, especially when it comes to sports. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. People can follow the analysts, reporters, and organizations the desire, and receive their news in a timely manner. I think because of Twitter it is hard to determine what is real and what is BS, but for the most part, most people have an idea of what fake news is by now."- Alex
- "I think so. With people being restricted to 140 characters, they have to be more selective and more concise in what they say. There aren't a lot of people our age writing long descriptions like older writers used to, and I think a lot of that comes from Twitter."- Colby

I think the best responses I got came on the sports journalism question. The people I asked are, like myself, big sports fans, so I think they probably have a better idea of that space than anything else, and I think that is an interesting area to examine. There have been a lot of people who have talked about the changing news landscape, but a lot of that has come from looking at fake news in the political landscape, and I don't think enough has been looked at with sports. That's why I wanted to get my dad's opinion on these topics, since he got to see these changes first hand and his perspective on all of that is different from anything my friends and I can say. We know that things used to be different, but we didn't live through that, so it's very hard to judge just how different things are in this new, digital age. I was also kinda shocked to see how short a lot of the responses were for the first questions, as most people just kind of stopped at a very basic analysis instead of going more in depth. That was a question I initially really was interested in, but it doesn't seem as if most people are really interested in that. I also thought the responses to the last of my questions were interesting, as there seemed to be conflicting opinions between people. My dad was very critical, while Alex brought top some interesting points on the benefits of Twitter.