Writing as Technology

Technology... is a queer thing.  It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.  ~C.P. Snow

When you hear the word “technology” what is the first thing that comes to mind?  Computers?  Smart phones?  Do you picture the latest and greatest widget that will soon be released from Apple?  Perhaps you think about the future, and the vast possibilities that lie ahead for the human species.  Cyborgs?  Flying cars? 

With the innovation of such advanced electronic and mechanical gadgets, it is easy for one to overlook the fact that many common activities and chores in our day-to-day life are in fact technologies.  From turning on a light, to heating food in the microwave, to using a pen, technology is all around us.  In his 1982 book Orality and Literacy, Fr. Walter J. Ong makes the argument that “writing is a technology” (p.81).  Given the fact that an estimated 99% of people over the age of 15 in the United States can read and write, the idea of writing as a technology is one that I had personally not given any prior thought (World Factbook, 2003).  How then does writing constitute as a form of technology; and knowing that all technology has positives and negatives associated with it, what are the drawbacks of writing?   

Chances are, when hearing the word “technology”, writing and literacy did not come screeching to the forefront of your mind.  Yet writing, like the English alphabet and numbers, is indeed a form of technology - one that is used countless times throughout the day.  Ong reminds us:

We find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be.  Yet writing (and especially alphabetic writing) is a technology, calling for the use of tools and other equipment: styli or brushes or pens, carefully prepared surfaces such as paper, animal skins, strips of wood, as well as inks or paints, and much more. (1982, p. 81-82)

When compared to the definition of what constitutes technology from the International Technology Education Association in the United States (IETA), it becomes clear that Fr. Ong is right; the process of writing indeed falls into this category.  The IETA states “technology is how people modify the natural world to suit their own purposes” and further defines technology as “the diverse collection of processes and knowledge that people use to extend human abilities and to satisfy human needs and wants” (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2010, p.25).  Unlike speech, the process of “writing is completely artificial” and thus was created by humans in order to fulfill a need and overall advance human ability (Ong, 1982, p.82).  By using tools such as pens, paper, and letters, humans have altered the natural world in order to better communicate a message.  

Writing, like all other technologies, has numerous pros and cons.  Cultural critic Neil Postman cautions that “every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that” (1992, p.5).  Scholars have debated the importance of writing and its significance since the days of Plato.  In fact, Plato himself has been one of the most referenced critics of writing, especially in his text Phaedrus.  In this story Socrates is discussing the invention of writing and states, “this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember themselves” (p. 91).  Many individuals were skeptical of the invention of writing and how it could negatively affect the art of speaking, the human memory, or create false wisdom.  In response to this claim, even Postman argues that “it is demonstrable that writing has had such an effect” (1992, p.5).  Even so, given the copious amounts of positives associated with this form of technology (I wouldn’t be writing this, you wouldn’t be reading this, schools would not exist, important historical events would be lost, etc.), it wouldn’t be hard to argue that “more than any other single invention, writing has transformed the human consciousness” (Ong, 1982, p.78).  Perhaps if Plato were to know that, over two thousand years after his death, people would still be studying the importance of his words all thanks to the invention of writing, his opinion would have changed.     

References

Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. London: Routledge

Publishing.

Plato. (350BC). Phaedrus.

Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York:

Vintage Books.

United States Central Intelligence Agency. (2003). World Fact Book Literacy Rates

[Data file]. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html