battle between oral and written

I would like to start this essay by quoting Richard Lanham’s in his work, Digital Literacy, in which he said that literacy is “the ability to understand information, however it is presented”. I would have to guess that he came up with this meaning because of the changes that took place in how people term the word as time elapsed. Before, you are literate if you know how to read and write and if you are not skilled in those two important things then you are considered an illiterate or in Filipino terms, “mangmang”. But thanks to the rapid and insurmountable advancements in the technology, a person who spends most of his lifetime playing computer games cannot anymore be deemed illiterate. As a matter of fact, there have been some major changes as to how we communicate with people and to the world and these changes fortunately brought about great things.

One of the best contributions of the introduction of written communication is that one is able to jot down his thoughts without having to worry about losing it. I can just imagine how people in the early times used leaves and rocks to write their thoughts. What a brilliant idea that was. And I am sensing that people did that because they could not just keep their thoughts to themselves. They had to somehow blurt it out, reveal to the world that they had these thoughts in mind. And as it turned out, their ideas became immortal. Besides, one would go crazy if he keeps everything to himself, to his own mind. I can’t imagine that happening to me. Written communication allows us to “fix information”. It’s an advantage to see your thoughts and ideas come out of your mind and seeing them on paper or in the computer, just like what I am doing now. And if there’s anything that you wish to hide, you can just easily erase it and no one else will ever have to find out what you had in mind.

Personally, I prefer writing than talking. I am especially not fond of reporting because ideas tend to get stuck in my mind that it could leave me speechless. I find it hard to explain and express myself when I’m just saying it verbally whereas if I’m writing things down. You are somehow limited to what information you have at the moment you are talking. But when you’re writing, you can always go back to the things that seemed incomplete and take advantage of the opportunity to revise them.

The beginning of multimedia enhanced the capabilities of individuals to understand information. You are not just hearing the information but seeing the person who is actually saying it. You can then comprehend what that person really means by just noticing his or her expressions or even body language. I love the concept of advertising and I am really hands down to those people who created one of a kind ads. if love watching them over and over again in youtube and I am always amazed by the amount of creativity these people had. A professor once said that advertising is all about ideas – ideas that you would want to come to life. I think this is one of the effects of multimedia. Commercial products can be easily sold because of ads and you won’t even believe the amount of people that they can manipulate because of these ads or is “influence” a better word?

I guess even more advancements will come in the future and whether or not it will be good for the next generation, one thing’s for sure – it will definitely make life easier.