[Reading-hall-of-fame] Kindle

[David Olson]

I have just given an interview to a French journal on the topic of
digitalization.  I'll forward it to you.  It is in two parts.  Here is the
second part.  David

Julien Gautier <julien.gautier at wanadoo.fr> on Sunday, October 25, 2009 at
5:12 PM -0500 wrote:
>
>THE TWO MORE QUESTIONS
>You seem to consider digitalization just as a moment inside the print  
>era of writing and reading, rather than a  « big transformation » of  
>literacy. Don’t you think these changes could have wider cultural,  
>cognitive and epistemological consequences, specially because of what  
>you called « the loss of mechanisms for evaluating the quality and  
>truth of what is written » ?

It is universally acknowledged that speech, that is, the competence for
speech, is the competence that more or less defines us as human.  Nothing
approaches speech in significance.  Secondly, the representation of speech
in writing is the second major feature of humans in most and certainly the
most advanced societies.  Mathematical notation is perhaps the third,
giving us access to science.  Fourth is computing languages that make the
digital universe possible.  The uses of computing for advanced science,
for social organization, for pre- planning, for design and the like is
significant.  But the implications of computing for human cognition, that
is for thinking and for extending the uses of mind, are either small or
unknown.  Certainly, computing allows new levels of animation and computer
programs can organize missions to the moon.  But mostly the uses of
digital technology for ordinary people in ordinary life is small compared
to writing, mathematics, and certainly in comparison to speech.  
>
>
>Amazon has just launched « Kindle », its electronical reader. Do you  
>think that this kind of devices will change the way we read and relate  
>to writing ? More generally, can’t we say that after the « word on  
>paper » we’ve began entering into something like a « word on screen » ?

You should say "world on paper", not "word" on paper although both are
true and important.  Writing, I believe, brought language and words in
particular into consciousness, making words and language something to
think about.  Books exploit that new awareness as well as further develop
it.  Kindle make books handy.  The promise of electronic readers is that
it makes books available to a broader audience just as printing once did. 
I see Kindle as a charming alternative to buying books not as a
revolutioinarly technology.  Computing and computer science make up new
medium of representation and, as I mentioned above, have changed our
sciences and our economy.  But few people learn to program, to write
programs to carry out our projects, or to use computer technologies for
other intellectual purposes.  We benefit from the products of those who do
but as yet there is no move to teach us to use computing in everyday life.
 On the other hand, we all talk and read and write.  Perhaps there will be
a day when writing programs is so easy that we will make a habit of doing
it and of seeing outself as expressions of some program (like a Cyborg). 
It'll be a while.
>
>


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