Writing and Tech and Internet and Signals and More

Modern technology has made way for the transformation of literacy and communication. With social interactions now often being held online, computers and phones are the most important pieces of technology. As people enter the workplace, they gain access to unique software and emails solely for their work. Kids take their tests and complete their homework online almost all the time, and as such, they receive laptops specifically for schoolwork. What we see here is the increase in society’s reliance on technology for the sake of everyday activities.

Almost everyone that can afford to get a phone uses one for daily interactions. Not only do we have newer small cell phones for calls and voicemails, but we also text people on the daily. In 1989, texting one’s friends on a phone did not exist yet, so people sent letters in the mail or left voicemails when they couldn’t pick up the phone.

Dennis Baron’s ‘From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies’ highlights the important changes that have been made in the past two centuries in regard to communication and literacy technology. Years before cell phones were introduced, people had to pay a subscription bill to use telephones in their own homes and at other places such as hotels and phone booths. Even today, we still have to pay for a cell phone service in order to use our phones at all.

Thinking about how social media works, the interface of social media platforms such as Tumblr, twitter, Instagram, and Facebook change every year. With it comes good and bad changes. On one hand, these interfaces introduce newer ways to write and post content, share posts with followers and friends, and implements ways to set online boundaries when it comes to curating your own experience. On another hand, there are often unnecessary changes that causes users great difficulty when it comes to operating these interfaces’ software. People often complain about having a harder time reading the words on the page because of bad changes, not being able to get their posts seen by other people, and having to work harder to curate their own experiences as the algorithms start to recommend content they never interact with. The transformation of literacy and communication still has a long way to go when it comes to developing good internet software.