Hitting the Escape button on print culture?



        After reading Christine Rosen's article on the book she read, I opened up to the idea that viral media is really taking over the world. She points out the fact that we now have "digital literacy," when we only used to have actually book literacy. Learning how to read is one of those traditional things that your parents are supposed to teach you how to do. Nowadays, parents themselves are being taught how to use technology from their children. For example, I had to teach my mom how to use the keyboard and how to use the mouse on a computer. (which she still has no clue how to use) Christine talks about how  "It is the busiest port of entry for popular culture and requires navigation skills different from those that helped us master print literacy." She is spot on with that comment.
         The skills necessary to be digitally literate is pretty hard to master itself. Honestly, I would not know where to begin on learning how to use a computer or an iPad if I was to learn today. I am so grateful to be alive during this multimedia revolution. Technology is exponentially advancing every year and it is scary to think that some day print media will be very rare, if not extinct. Digital literacy’s advocates increasingly speak of replacing, rather than supplementing, print literacy, Rosen paraphrases.

  In the New York Times article "Becoming screen literate," the author also takes on a whole new meaning while looking at technology. These days millions of people can alter or enhance many different medias. For example, Movie mash-ups can be created with software and have alternate endings, songs or even characters. "Hollywood mavericks like George Lucas have embraced digital technology and pioneered a more fluent way of film making." He has masted a way of manipulating images and movies to make an amazing product that no one else can come close to making. The question that stood out to me in this article was, "How can we browse a film the way we browse a book?" I really don't see how we can do that with proper literacy without actually looking at scenes and looking back at the emotions we would have missed at a one time showing.

Bottom line is that I don't think print literacy will be erased completely, but the more and more ways that technology is advanced, the quicker people will forget about reading an inconvenient paper back book.