Colon- Journal 2

    For this week's assignment, we had to provide our thoughts on the literacy debate explained in The New York Times article from 2008 "R U Really Reading" by the journalist Motoko Rich. In her writing she presented differing viewpoints on whether reading and communicating online actually counted as literacy. Webster's Dictionary defines "literacy" as, "the quality or state of being literate". Searching for their definition of "literate" you'll find, "able to read and write". However, as I spoke about in my first journal post, how able someone is when it comes to reading and writing (literacy) can vary depending on the circumstance. One may be literate in the English language but not in another. One may be literate in one subject like physics so they can understand a physics paper, but then they may struggle understanding Shakespeare. Literacy is a tool. You need the right tool to do the job. The ability to read and write will not look the same to everyone.

    New medias and digital content have either been invented or have become more widespread in the past thirty years. The Internet, Social Media, YouTube, streaming services, and video games are each examples of this. In my response, I defended these mediums as literature (with knowledge of them as literacy). The world has changed in these past thirty years. Information is not only gathered by reading physical books or newspapers. Now, most people search for information on the Web. Stories are no longer told by reading novels. One can find just as (if not more) impactful, thought-provoking, or engaging stories told through a controller. If one wants to figure out how to complete a task, they can watch a tutorial video on YouTube. This is not to say that novels are obsolete. Far from it, but the definition of literacy needs to change with the modern world. Sure, a person can be literate in all the classical arts. They could have an encyclopedia-like knowledge of every Shakespeare play or wake up every day reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War. This person would be hopelessly lost in school, in the work place, and in society if they had ability to access and utilize modern digital medias. Pass them a controller to experience amazing stories told in BioShock, The Last of Us, or Knights of The Old Republic and they'd be completely lost. Have them find online sources to write a research paper and they'd be just as lost. Just as a knowledge of physics is needed to engage with the scientific literature of that subject, knowledge of new medias is becoming increasingly necessary to engage in all facets of modern society.