Day 1.5: From Pencils to Pixels & Writing Culture

In the reading "From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies" Dennis Baron constructs the history of Writing Technologies and the developmental impacts on literacy that they had and the community that used them.

I found it sobering, that each change in the written medium over time had been met with opposition, just as the digital medium is being opposed by that of the old, and perhaps rightfully so. A constant theme with each of these changes is that there is something to be lost, but with each thing lost there is so much more to be gained. However, I also think that such opposition is healthy for the growth of any medium. In a way it keeps it in check, helping form the new rules and laws surround it so that it can best serve those who it was meant for. As with history, studying our past can inform our futures. If there is anything to be learned, by a popular quote often misattributed to, but inspired by, Socrates:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

In another reading titled "Writing Culture," Jay Bolter talks about how these technologies of today are shaping or minds and our cultures. I agree with some of his assumptions, but I feel like he views the internet through a Read-Only cultural leans. That although he observes these changes and events in the technology, he views it in a way as just another passive medium.

First off, Bolter Claims that the internet is a medium that will only be available to those of the middle and upper class, which is jut not true. Spaces, such as schools, libraries, and Maker/Hacker Spaces that are open to the general public provide internet, and in most cases usually for free. It then comes down to how someone uses and are willing to search out the medium. Some NGOs have also contributed in making the internet available to third world countries through the installation of permanent and stationary, communal kiosks, which end up promoting an environment needed to innovate and learn new skills.

Secondly, he perceives that the internet is no longer trying to connect the world, but create specialized, focused subcultures. Where I'd agree with him that subcultures are being made, I'd argue that that is what makes it so easy to connect and access their information. If the internet has no structure, if everything was connected, then it would simply become a muddled mess of information. Yes, in general people are only going to be interested in accessing only the information that they are personally interested in. However, with the advent of websites such as tumblr and twitter which are built on an architecture that gives insights into other peoples interests/activities, it thus helps in passively broadening their user's horizons.

Lastly, Bolter submits his concern that such an open medium will eliminate high culture and the intimacy that comes from printed material. What I don't think he understands is that the digital medium is also a flexible one. Depending on what service you use, the content that a person puts out into the world can be made as intimate as one wants, even to the point of being able to forgo comments and detection by search engines. Same goes for it being high culture, written material can be as articulate and well researched as one choses to make it. The internet is not all just dick jokes, porn, and kittens, some people actually have something to say. Besides the internet is never going to kill print material, just give it another avenue from which one can access it.