In the article "10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books" by Time Carmody he gives a list of 10 defining reading revolutions in history that he believes changed the reading world to a strong extent. In his reading he describes that German Historian Rolf Engelsing made the phrase reading revolution through trying "to describe something he saw in the 18th century; a shift from "intensive" reading and re-reading of very few texts to "extensive" reading of many often only once, showing a step into modern reading, and the citizens of this world were becoming modern readers.
In Ong's Writing Reconstructures Consciousness it speaks about how we took writing from the get go, how it has evolved, and why we need it in our daily lives now. It speaks about languages developing in different areas of the world, from Hebrew, to Greek, to Japanese, to Chinese, to Korean, speaking of vowels, consonants, and characters, as well as, how languages created themselves, such as using other languages to develop their own. Without writing we could not have the strong technology we had; however this has its positives and negatives.
In Carmody's article I connected most revolution #7 or the electronic age. The electronic age is the age of audiovisual media, cylinders, reels, and cassettes, etc and how they have become essential in our culture today. The electronic age has caused us to become more reliant on technology than ever. Technology to us is now a second-hand thing, at least in the United States and most European countries. If you don't know how to use a computer and you are under the age of 60, then you are considered an outcast of society.
This is where the positive and negatives come in to being such a technological driven world. With technology we are able to create and find things we could never compute before. Astronomically huge numbers are being solved by the computers in 3 seconds, while it'd take us 30 pages just to figure out the equation. The computer can hold information, edit information, and double-check our information, but with stronger intelligence comes the weaker less intelligent society that relies on the computer for most information, such as I. My computer is my internet web search, dictionary, fact sheet, calculator, thesaurus, and spell checker. My computer is my brain, not my brain is my computer. So many people rely on computers to solve all their problems, use great too much in a paper, the thesaurus on microsoft word can change that for you in two clicks! Our society has weakened in effort from technology but at the same time our technology has let us discover and solve tremendous (no I did not thesaurus tremendous) things.
My thoughts correlate with Ong's text because in the section Plato, Writing, and Computers Ong speaks about how Plato urged to resist the use of anything that did the work for you, such as writing things down so you didn't have to remember, because that caused your brain not to be exercised. Ong goes on to explain about how today parents fear that calculators provide an external resource just as writing does so it furth weakens the mind. Written text is also unresponsive, while a conversation is a banter of back and forth talking.However, without text Plato could not spread his word as far, and without books that were printed they could not put it down in text. As Ong says " Once the word is technologized there is no effective way to criticize what technology has done with it without the aid of the highest technology available."
Overall once technology was made it couldn't be stopped, it'll continue to grow with words and calculations and will never stop as the mind grows to new heights on what to create.
Hey Christina. Once again you've picked an interesting subject. It is strange how much we have become reliant on technology isn't it. We have graphing calculators to do our math for us, cell phones and cell phone companies to do what essentially letters and postmen used to do, iPods instead of live musicians, and all of our other electronic devices. The other part of what you said being are you outcast by society if you don't evolve? The answer being pretty much yes you are somewhat disconnected and thought of as old fashion.
ReplyDeleteThere is the question of whether or not technology is bad for us. There's no debating that a computer has become our second brain. We use it to think for us. So many times if I'm unsure of something I won't even try to think further about it myself. When it takes literally 5 seconds to find out the answer from Google, why spend the extra time ourselves to try and understand? It certainly will not be a good thing if and when the day comes that we don't have this second brain to function for us. Sadly I, like most other people around 25 and younger, have grown up nearly my entire life with technology. I don't think it's necessarily such a bad thing though. When cavemen invented fire it wasn't such a bad thing right? So I think times change for better or for worse and we evolve to take those changes into account. I love technology so I am certainly not going to complain about it.
Christina, you are right to point out that Plato urged to resist anything that did the work for you. He does often come off as ridiculous but he always has a point. It's that little saying when it comes to your brain power: use it or lose it! i know i wish i used my calculator less, but what’s confusing is why. There is always one handy, in my keychain, my cell phone, my computer, just about everywhere except my watch.. I’m sure they have watches with calculators though! lol but i think Plato's line of reasoning is limited as you pointed out that to get his point across and people to hear it, he also confirm to writing. But when it comes to new technologies computer can do things that will take us forever in a flash. It’s all good.
ReplyDeleteGreat job, Christina. That's all I really have to say. :)
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