Reading Response 2: Boyd on Digital Literacy

The purpose of Danah Boyd’s passage on digital literacy is to break down the term, “digital natives”, and the connotations the phrase has.  The term digital native is most often used to describe the younger generation, who was born in the age of the internet.  This very general viewpoint can be demonstrated best through a statement Boyd provides given my state officials in 2010.  ““The children who attend school today are digital natives who think nothing of learning through the use of technology. As adults, we are digital immigrants who remember lessons delivered through film strips and overhead projectors.”(176)  This quote shows the belief that all members of a younger generation are technologically savvy, while all older people are not equipped to use technology to its full potential.

This generality can negatively affect both the young and the old.  While people labeled “digital immigrants” were born before the age of internet, it would be unfair to assume that they could not or have not learned how to use technology.  The opposite holds true for “digital natives”.  It would be inaccurate to assume that everyone born in the last 25 years has a working knowledge of technology and digital media.

Boyd also preaches the importance of digital literacy.  The phrase digital literacy describes a person’s ability to seek out information, and weed out information that may be either irrelevant or inaccurate.  Boyd claims that as a society or digital literacy abilities are relatively untrained.  He shows this by explaining how preconceived notions about sites like Wikipedia, and google.  Boyd explains that the general belief with students is that Google is a reliable source of information while Wikipedia is not.  This shows a lack of digital literacy as students are unable to make the determination of what are and what are not reliable sources to pull research from.  By letting teachers and public opinions determine what sources students should use, you take away from a student’s ability to look critically at a source.  By telling students what sources to use or not use, you remove the need for a student to analyze a writing, and the biases and motives that may have influenced the data within it.  Students should learn that sources coming from the most popular sites may hold extreme biases and may not be reliable even if they are the first result you can find doing a basic search.

The importance of digital literacy is emphasized when Boyd says, “Scholars and governmental agencies began to argue that access alone mattered little if people didn’t know how to use the tools in front of them”  This means that just having access to the internet does not necessarily make you digitally literate.  This backs up Boyd’s opposition of the use of the term “digital natives”.  While most (95%) teenagers have access to the internet of some level, just having access does not teach students literacy.  Boyd shows that many students who use the internet regularly, do not fully grasp the intricacies that come within it.  Students were quoted saying things like, “google knows all” showing a clear lack of understanding as to what service google actually provides.  The ability to use technology to find information can only get you so far if you don’t understand where or who the information is coming from.

 

HW1 Ong & Sundiata

Some Psychodynamics of Orality is an analytical piece in which Walter Ong describes the unique qualities of cultures with no written language.  Ong argues there that primary oral cultures must use different rhetorical strategies, that when put in writing would not convey the same tone or meanings.  Ong’s claims can be supported by discussing the myth of Sudiata, a tale that originates from oral culture in the Mali Empire.  There are multiple transcriptions of Sundiata, and by comparing them, you can see how the storytellers change things to fit their audience and means of communication.  When contrasting a storyteller’s transcription to a version edited to suit western readers, Ong’s claims become well supported.

Ong claims oral culture must use repetition to ensure their point is clear and memorable. You can vividly see oral cultures affinity for redundancy in the spoken version of Sundiata’s story.  The griot repeats several parts of the story two or three times.  The young king’s mother begs for baobab leaves twice, and is rejected twice.  The mother asks her son, “will you never rise?” five times in one passage.  Then the young Sundiata attempts to stand three times only to succeed the final try.  However this kind of redundancy isn’t used solely to make the audience remember the words.  This repetition adds an increased sense of drama and accomplishment when Sundiata finally is able to stand on his final attempt.  While this kind of repetition would seem cumbersome in standard writing, this style would not seem so out of place in spoken word.  This supports Ong’s viewpoint that oral rhetoric holds more gravity than written word.

You can also see that the spoken word is much more concise than the written story.  The written version gives much more background to the story, and includes much more detail in the young king’s activities.  This is because when speaking the audience can only retain so much in their memories.  It is important for spoken word to minimize superfluous details, so that the audience can focus on relevant points.   The written text allows for in depth descriptions of settings and characters because the reader is able to go back and re-read anything they did not retain.

This concept of reader retention relates to a claim that writing becomes necessary when enough information is needed in the piece, Why write? A reconsideration.  In, this Young and Sullivan provide an example of multiple math problems.  They show that simpler math problems that we have seen many times can been committed to memory without having to actually solve the problem to recall the answer.  They then argue that when problems become more complicated, with more steps and larger numbers to remember, most of us will not be able to solve them without writing some intermediate steps.  We cannot recall every step of these problems even if we maintain focus.  This is just like how and audience can only retain so much detail of a spoken performance.  Ong’s claims coincide with the claims of Young and Sullivan in that they both acknowledge that memory is the limiting factor of spoken word.