Literacy: a time-honored tool
According to Our World in Data, only 12% of the world population could read and write in 1820. Today, only 17% of people cannot read and write (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, 2018).
These numbers tell us that though the concept of literacy stretches back thousands of years to the advent of writing, it is only within the last century that this amazing technology was accessible to the majority of people. Yes, technology. In order to understand what it means to be literate today, it is important to think of literacy as a technology or a tool rather than a skill. Considering literacy to be a skill limits us. The literacy tests used to get data such as that above often only require a person to read and write a single sentence. This action does indeed show that a person has the motor skills and mental capacity to interpret letters on a page, but flourishing in the modern world demands much more than this.
Thinking of literacy as a technology, on the other hand, carries with it the assumption that it is something that will constantly be improved. It will constantly be made more effective and more available to more people.
When we consider the long history of written language, we find that such a technology developed with the birth and growth of cities. As long-distance trade became possible, writing became necessary to keep track of what belonged to Person A and what Person B owed Person C, and so on (Mark, 2011). Writing has come a long way from these humble beginnings and has taken on new purposes.
In his Crash Course video “How and Why We Read,” John Green makes the argument that, “we privilege reading and writing [above oral communication] because they allow us to communicate directly and transparently with people who live very far away from us” (2012).
It is true that writing has allowed people to communicate their most intimate thoughts (often more effectively than they can in live conversation) and preserve them for as long as the environment will allow. The consequence of this technology is that countless people from all places and times can read these thoughts, engaging with the author in what Green calls “an act of empathy” (2012), and gaining knowledge, fulfillment, etc. Reading and writing are gifts that keep on giving, and traditional print text is a gem that we should continue to value highly. But, we must remember that literacy is a technology.
Like most technologies, it has been manipulated by humans to make it serve them better in a changed environment. Our current environment is one that is increasingly digital. Therefore, the technology of literacy must aid us in flourishing online as well as in the physical world. Clearly, the ability to read and write still apply here. However, there are several characteristics of the Internet that make online texts fundamentally different than physical texts found in books, printed newspapers, etc.
First, the Internet is far more democratic than the world of print text. There are endless websites on which a person can post. A person hoping to start a blog does not have to deal with publishers in the way a prospective author of a novel does. There is much good inherent in this, but it also opens the possibilities for the spread of misinformation.
A second and related characteristic is that communication via the Internet is nearly instantaneous. Such a capability is incredibly helpful in keeping loved ones in touch or communicating safety information to the public in the event of a natural disaster. Communication without impediments also allows heated arguments to get shamefully ugly and allows even credible news organizations to share ‘fake news’ unbeknownst to them.
As is mentioned in the introduction of “Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century,” it is the ability to navigate reams of information and determine what is trustworthy that is necessary to success today (Mobile Digital Arts, 2014). If we want our technology of literacy to serve us and keep us safe, it must enable us to determine the credibility of online sources in the same way simple language comprehension allows us to recognize the word ‘poison’ and know to stay away from that substance.
An equally important reality is that text online is far more social than print text. As Julie Warner argues in her Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones, online text is not viewed as the property of the author (2017, p. 75). It is easy to copy, paste, and remix content. Could we, and should we imbue our technology of literacy with an ethical component that empowers a person to determine when and how much credit is due to a source? In keeping with the idea that technology should improve the world we live in, I would argue that this is a necessary addition.
The first two characteristics dealt largely with ol’ reliable — reading and writing. A third, and enormously important, characteristic of the Internet is that it supports multimedia. The Internet allows us to share words, pictures, videos, audio recordings, and combinations of these with one another. The days of interpreting a picture being a task reserved for art critics are over, and a new era of us analyzing photos and videos with the same scrutiny as we analyze Shakespeare are upon us. While John Green argued that we value reading and writing because such skills allow us to communicate with others anytime, anywhere, the nature of the digital world is that there are other means of doing this.
Memes, for example, are composed of a picture and written text. While the text caption is what is edited to appeal to unique audiences, the general meaning of the picture is more universally understood.
The beauty of memes is that while written communication lacks the nuance possible in spoken communication, the image helps to make clear the intention of the written words, thus making communication more effective. As this text-image combination continues to permeate the online world, a worthwhile adaptation to our technology of literacy might be teaching students to curate this form of media in a similar manner to how they curate an essay. This is not to say memes should replace essays. There is a proper use for each, and a part of teaching literacy ought to be helping students determine how to maximize the efficacy of all forms of media.
A need for a miscellany of skills is the hallmark of this age. It is the technology of literacy that will allow us to gain those skills and flourish. Change is hard, but it is an absolute necessity that we expand our idea of literacy to include new forms of communication. Many thousands of years ago, the wheel was invented in order to improve human lives, and we are still making innovations in tires today. Literacy must be no different. In what way will you advance the technology of literacy?
References
Green, J. [Crash Course]. (2012, November 15). How and Why We Read [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/MSYw502dJNY
Mobile Digital Arts. (2014, September 30). Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century [Video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/107628541
Ortiz-Orspina, E., & Roser, M. (2018). Literacy. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/literacy
Warner, J. (2017). Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones. New York: Peter Lang.
Writing. (2011). In Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/writing/
