Digital Technology

“When technology shifts, it bends the culture.”  The article “Becoming Screen Literate” by Kevin Kelly describes the shift in society due to digital technology.  Our culture originally survived on spoken work.  People like Socrates were simply story tellers and that was our means of passing communication.  Through the oral skills of memorization and use of rhetorical devices, communication was successful passed down.  “Then, about 500 years ago, orality was overthrown by technology.”  Inventions like the metallic movable type, made writing an important art form to our culture. The distribution of writing and ideas now became easier and cheaper.   The article continues to discuss the shift from the paper to the screen.  As Kevin Kelly describes, “we are becoming people of the screen.”  With the invention of the internet and World Wide Web, we are just as much consumers as producers.  We can watch read an article online and produce a video response to it in a matter of minutes.  There is little distinction between the producer and the consumer.  If you use the internet daily then you are both.  This is she shift that is being made in society due to digital technology.  In generations like mine, and younger, we see people more comfortable reading a screen than a book.  There is a shift from “book fluency to screen fluency, from literacy to visuality.”  We can now all be writers, videographers, photographers, and produce music with digital technology.  Reference