By: Julia Weiss
10/09/2012
3:05 a.m.
A "network society", it's interesting, I have never thought about the societal state we live in as that before, but it makes total sense! Centered and based off of communication technology and information. Sounds right, right? Literacy has definitely taken a jump since a 'few' years ago. The way I see it is, literacy jumped from the spoken word, to the written word, to the printed word, to the programmed word. It seems that our society choose a form of communication most suited for the societal structure, and as our society advances so does our system of communication. This makes me wonder though, does our form of literacy or the context we choose to communicate shape or society or does our society shape the context and literacy of which we communicate?
Culture is now directly linked with accessibility to online literacy, and commuters, or the 'networking-world'. Sometimes I feel like the only people who exist on this world are those we have access to the computer, the news, the world outside their world. And the reason I feel this way is because even though I know there are people with homes, events, lives, and stories out there, because they don't have access they don't have an identity compatible with the networking society we live in today. And if you don't have an identity that is made known, then you are virtually nonexistent, you are a figure (population #) not a face, name or person.
This then leads my thoughts to the identity breakdown of our culture and the computer literate vs. Illiterate identities. For example, the elderly generation tends to be computer illiterate, while the younger generation tends to be literate. The reasons why are self explanatory ( at least to me -- which is basically based on levels of comfort and growing up with or without computers ), but that is not what strikes me. What strikes me is why the computer illiterate elderly who are not computer savvy have an identity based off of that reason, and those who live beyond the borders of America don't? So, after thinking about his I encountered the idea of location and how that effects computer fluency and cultural identification. Because the elderly or computer illiterate people here are near those who are computer literate they have a stronger social identification. We live in a networking society, and we connect to those who don't network near us, because that stands out as a social identifier, however those far away who are merely not given the accessibility to computers, or the education to become fluent in networking are now losing social identification and what is considered to be present day existence for anyone outside are own country.
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| Must learn to learn! Mission: Become Computer Literate! |
After I finished reading this article, I have but one thought. I want to be computer fluent AND literate with information technology. To be honest, I kind of feel the discomfort of the elderly. I have never been computer savy, or fluent with the society of networking literacy. I know I have the intellectual capabilities, but I feel I really lack the knowledge within the Information and technology concepts (Computers, Information Systems, Networks, Digital Representations of Systems, Information Organization, Modeling and Abstraction...etc.), and lastly I feel I have some competency in the Information Technology skills.
Basically, after reading this article, I now know that in order to become computer literate I need to become fluent in three types of information technology: the contemporary skills, foundational concepts, and intellectual capabilities. Like I said I feel the intellectual capabilities I have, because they are applicable to everyday life, but the foundational concepts of computers and system setups needs some addressing, and the contemporary skills are somewhat adequate since I did grow up as "digital native".
Long story short, since we are now in a world where information technology is how our society networks, identifies, and advances as a political/social structure, I need to educate myself. Just as rhetoric shapes and grows with democracy, so technology today on the network based society we live in.
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