This article, “Orality and Literacy” by Walter J. Ong was a very interesting reading. Technology has become apart of our everyday lives and we use it everyday making human daily tasks more simple and easier as ever. How I view technology are the new gadgets, such as Apple products, phones, and computers. Anything that connects to the Internet is considered new technology. We don’t ever think about writing as a technology but according to Ong, writing has become a form of technology whether we see it or don’t.
Writing has been in our lives forever, before the new advancing technology of smart phones and computers. But no one has every thought about what was there before writing came about. How did people communicate ideas from one place to another? Writing has been a part of our everyday lives because it is the way we were told to express ideas and the way we were taught by the school system.
Plato’s Socrates has also said writing destroys memory because those who write will become forgetful and writing weakens the mind. I agree with it to an extent because back in the days when there were no smartphones, people knew almost everyone’s phone number they spoke to by heart and now people cant reiterate at least 3 phone numbers. Also I write down everything I have to get done instead of using my brain’s full capacity. Writing things down also gives you the ability to edit and change or add on to the “truth”, which can be questionable.
