Relationships: Relating to Others around Technology

It's worth noting that the activities which stand out in Lanning’s memory and define this section of his narrative seem gendered: competition to answer the teachers’ questions, competition with friends in typing races. On the other hand, the fact that his is the only male narrative included in this subset means that conclusions about gendered attitudes toward technology cannot be drawn from Lanning’s narrative alone. The friendly competition Lanning foregrounds aligns with a tendency Shirley Rose notes for men to emphasize “individual achievement” and “comparison of achievement against others” in literacy narratives (250). Like the intriguing prevalence of references to Oregon Trail, Lanning’s mention of good-natured competition with his classmates stands out from the subset of narratives. The fit between Lanning’s story and the trend Rose and Christie Launius note in men’s literacy narratives to represent literacy development in terms of individual achievement and comparison to others is suggestive. However, this subset of narratives lacks sufficient male representation to test out Rose’s and Launius’ print literacy-based claims about the gendered socialization of literacy in a technological medium. So Lanning’s reference to racing and competing against his classmates must remain for now what digital literacy scholar Jonathan Alexander calls an anecdotal or speculative, rather than exhaustive or representative, case (16).