Your being here suggests that you possess the critical skill of being able to read. I remember being taught to read at 5, and it was a long and gradual process. Word by word I learned how to interpret nonsensical symbols into thoughts and ideas, originally from someone else's mind, but which would then incite new thoughts and ideas in my own. What followed in my childhood memories are many priceless journeys in reading. I read fairy tales and novels, biographies and articles. My understanding, my tastes, and my comprehension all developed and matured, each attainment leading seamlessly into the next. Reading is the foundation of so many things I know today. My perspectives on life, my academic education, my pursuit of personal interests and more are all dependent on this extremely fundamental ability of being able to understand words on a page.
This is by no means a unique experience. The advent of scholasticism and literacy raised the common man's intelligence and capability in ways that fundamentally redefined our cultures. Of course, previous to widespread literacy, there were other forms for attaining information: such as conversation and example. While these methods were not abandoned through being able to read, literacy allowed for additional ways to attain information that were never available before. For one, you could have information repeated to you over and over as many times as you needed by rereading a passage. For another, you could experience phrasing that had been carefully cultivated and revised for ultimate directness and clarity. For another, you could experience thoughts and opinions that came from miles away in countries that you would never visit in life. Even when writing was used to communicate works of fiction, it still provided new opportunities to access artistic, moral, and inspirational information. In short, it can be concluded that a literate man was generally a superior version over his illiterate self, and was better qualified in all things. The literate man now had the tools by which to better attain all knowledge and skill available in the global consciousness.
To me it is evident that today we are experiencing yet another drastic revolution in communication and information with the advent of computational technology and the internet. Like literacy, this technology is a versatile means to many ends. It is a tool in the belt of those that wish to access information of any sort. Obviously it does not replace literacy, rather it does much to accentuate and expand it. One way in which computers and the internet fundamentally change our approach to the dissemination of knowledge is that it allows the forming of databases that can digitally store information greater than that of any library, but which can be searched faster than is humanly possible. They also now allow for the virtually immediate sharing of information and conditions from opposite ends of the globe. You can experience content in many new forms, including interactive experiences. You can participate in many-to-many interactions, no longer limited to one-to-one or one-to-many communications. And more easily than ever before these tools allow you to be a producer of information, rather than just a consumer. As before, the man that possesses technological literacy will be a superior version of his technologically illiterate self.
Those that ignore this new tool will progressively find themselves moving slower and slower than the rest of the world. Taking more time to learn less, those people will also find themselves attaining a lesser status than others. In the same way that traditional illiteracy has become a trait of the poorer, the uneducated, and the deprived, so it will be with technological illiteracy. Any educational institution and any concerned parent should have as priorities that children learn their alphabet, learn how to read...and then learn how to install an app and conduct a web-search.
