My Writing Invention. Final Draft.
Writing has always been a technology that many of us take for granted. We’ve grown up learning words, phrases, and ways to communicate messages. However, how often do we consider writing as a technology?
When I think of technology, I think about computers and software that help aid the community in a number of ways. I think of doctors using new instruments to perform surgeries for those in need. I think of scientists using telescopes and gadgets to make new discoveries about our world. I think of smaller cars that have been built for faster speed and higher duration. I have never really stopped to think about writing, something almost everyone is capable of doing, as a technology.
So, what is technology? How does writing fall into the category of technologies? When you think about it, technology is an invention that helps a society in gaining and spreading knowledge. Writing, even ancient writing with pictographs that has been around for a very long time has helped aid our society in gaining and spreading knowledge. Dennis Baron, in his essay “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” states that:
When we write with cutting-edge tools, it is easy to forget that whether it consists of energized particles on a screen or ink embedded in paper or lines gouged into clay tablets, writing itself is always first and foremost a technology, a way of engineering materials in order to accomplish an end. (71)
Baron’s statement proves to be true, as many people, especially those who have lived with writing their entire lives, do not take time to consider writing as a technology. I am sure that most Americans view writing as a simple skill that they’ve had for as long as they can remember. Because we do not live in an oral based culture, it is easy for us to take writing for granted. It seems almost that writing has even been forgotten. Because of all the new technologies that we have, such as computers and cell phones, messages are being sent to people through those technologies instead of through letters. This just proves how much we rely on technology and how it has evolved over a number of years. Writing will always be the same, but our dependence on it and the way we use it to our advantage will, and has already changed.
For the first part of our “Invent Your Own Writing Technology” Project, we were asked to invent a technology that could convey a message without using a writing utensil, or anything close to our usual writing technologies. When the time came for me to sit down and think about what I would invent, I found it hard to come up with something. Surely, there were tons of ways of expressing myself and conveying messages to others, but all of these ways included some sort of writing utensil. After much thought, I began to imagine myself in a lonely forest. How would I convey a message to someone if I had to? Surely there had to be ways in which this was accomplished many years ago when there were no pens, pencils, or quills to write with. I thought of cave drawings, and the messages that were conveyed through those. However, this project asked for our own invention. We could not use paint, or any other extension of ink.
Walter J. Ong, in his essay, “Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought,” states that, “Nevertheless, by contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial” (Ong, 23). When I first read this statement I did not understand how writing could be artifical. Writing has been around for so long, it only seems natural. After thinking about this more, I realized that Ong was right. Speaking is natural, because everyone who grows up learns to speak, no matter where they are from or what background they have. Writing, however, is different. Some cultures rely on oral speech, and writing is not essential to their survival. I suddenly realized how my dependence on writing has led me to take it for granted. Writing is not a natural thing, it is a technology that has been used to aid us in society. When we are born we are not trying to form letters; rather, we are learning to form words through speaking. Speaking is natural, writing is not. Later on in his essay, Ong states, “To say writing is artifical is not to condemn it but to praise it. Like other artifical creations and indeed more than any other, writing is utterly invaluable and indeed essential for the realization of fuller, interior, human potentials” (Ong, 23). Ong gives a great description of writing and how it is essential to reaching a greater potential in human beings. I believe that through writing we have reached a fuller potential. Just look at all the books of fiction and poetry that have been created. These books were written by human beings, for human beings, to convey messages of love, hope, and more. As humans we strive to express ourselves and to share that with others. Writing is a wonderful way for us to achieve that. Writing is indeed a technology. More than just a technology, it is a gift so that we may express ourselves in ways beyond our own ability.
So, with this cleared up, it was time to think about my own writing invention. I placed myself back in the position of a lonely traveler on a desolate land mass. How would I convey a message? I decided to walk around my backyard for some inspiration.
Nature seemed like a great way to convey a message to someone. But how? Surely there was a better way of saying something than just carving something into a tree. I looked around my yard and realized that I could potentially create a message using everything around me. With that thought in mind I grabbed a trash bag and started collecting everything that was lying around. Within 10 minutes my bag was full of flowers, leaves, rocks, dead bugs, and trash. Surely I could make a message using these items.
It worked. Nature was my savior. My message was easy enough to create and also easy enough to read. How did it fare as a technology though? Well, I thought about the possibility that it might not be a good invention just because my rocks and leaves weren’t so easily transportable. After more thought it seemed that that would not matter. If anyone was stranded somewhere, they would be able to gather their own sorts of debris in nature that could aid them in creating a message. And so, as a technology for writing, I think that nature is a pretty helpful tool.
Using nature as my writing technology helped me learn more about writing as a technology. While I never considered writing to be one of my technologies before, I am really thankful for it now. What if our culture was based solely on oral tradition? Thinking about this reminded me of the “telephone” game in grade school, where the beginning and end results of a simple sentence passed through a number of students were always different . So many things could be lost without writing. In Plato’s “Phaedrus,” Socrates tells Phaedrus that writing is a bad thing because it takes away from people’s memories. Phaedrus contradicts Socrates by saying that it has only helped humankind. I agree with Phaedrus. Although Socrates has a point when he says that people have forgotten things because of writing, I also think that writing has enriched our culture. For many people, it is easier to express something through writing. Writing now makes many contracts legal or illegal, and helps confirm or deconfirm a certain act. Writing has become so important in our world that it is hard to think of a world without writing. This makes it even harder for us when we try to think of countries that do not have writing. This relates back to writing as a technology. Think about poor countries that don’t have money for their children to attend school. Because of the lack of schooling, the use of writing as a technology has not been achieved. Now think about how far back these countries are when compared to us. The poor countries in Africa do not have the same technology as we do. Perhaps writing is so influential as a technology that the absense of it has set others back when it comes to new advances. Perhaps more could be achieved in these countries if writing was a technology for them.
Writing as a technology is definitely something that we should not take for granted. It is easy to understand how this has happened, though. We live in a world where new technology arises almost every day. In fact, I’d say that about every month a new cell phone comes out with the capability for holding more information than before. We rely on computers to figure out information for us, remember dates and numbers, and even calculate problems for us. I think that this reliance on technology has made us forget that technology is there to aid us, not necessarily do the work for us. Although it is nice to have these technologies to help us, this might have been what Socrates was talking about when he said that writing was bad. This is not to say that technology is bad, but perhaps our reliance on it has grown too strong. We should consider the true definition of technology–something that aids us in gaining and spreading knowledge.
After the struggle of trying to come up with a new writing invention, I see now the importance of writing as a technology, and how far it has brought us. Without written words, the printing press, or books, there would be much less to gain information from. There would also be less art to learn from, as writing plays a huge role in the arts. Writing has enriched our minds to help guide us in a new direction. It has helped us in, as Ong puts it, realizing our fuller, interior, human potentials.
Works Cited.
Baron, Dennis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” from Passions, Pedagogies, and Twenty-first-Century Technologies. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1999. 71.
Ong, Walter J. “Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought.” Literacy, a Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Ellen Cushman, Eugene R. Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2001, 23.
“From Plato’s Phaedrus.” Web Page. <http://www.stevendkrause.com/academic/eng328/phaedrus.html> 16 Sept. 2010.
