My smart phone story. When I was writing a book recently, I managed (to my surprise) to be disciplined about phone and social media use. No distractions while I concentrated on the book, for about a year and a half. Then, when it was all done, I went back to my old ways; head down, scrolling, posting, checking. Almost immediately, my brain had what felt like a spasm. My concentration and memory went haywire. I felt depressed. I forgot things all the time. Did daft things like drive off without paying for petrol. The worst passed after a few months, and it may have been a more straightforward reaction to stopping concentrating on that one thing, the book. But it felt to me like my brain crunching the gears as it rewired itself to short-term thinking, seeing the world in 240 characters rather than paragraphs, and a bombardment of images and videos. I still feel like I’m at about 80% of where I was, mid-book. Please keep up your campaign, so important!
Great article -- I too am a very big fan of Ong's Orality and Literacy.
Ted Chiang has a great short story that fictionalizes Ong's story about Tiv genealogies ("The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling") and combines it with a futuristic story about being able to accurately record all our life events. Really well done.
Also, have you come across The Gutenberg Parenthesis by Jeff Jarvis? This is about the ideas developed by Lars Ole Sauerberg and Tom Pettitt of the University of Southern Denmark. The Gutenberg parenthesis represents the five hundred years between the invention of the printing press and the rise of the internet, in which the printed word and the bound text dominated human culture in the West.
Their idea is that this period is just a short-term blip in how humans communicate and exchange ideas. With the invention of the internet, we are now engaged in various forms of electronic, digitally mediated communication, which moves society away from static, stable, closed texts, which are the property of a single author, toward a form of secondary orality, with texts that are more fluid, less stable, and reflect the input of multiple individuals. Tom Pettitt says "if one wishes to know how we will communicate in the future, the answer seems to be: like a medieval peasant"
Thank you. I've wondered about reading The Gutenberg Parenthesis but wasn't sure it was worth it. But if you really recommend it I will get a copy. It sounds interesting from what you say
It's a great overview, with loads of detail, but he's probably more optimistic than I am about the new phase we're entering. I've enjoyed reading Tom Pettitt's more academic stuff as well, and just as much.
Thank you again! The Walter Ong book sounds fascinating, if depressing. As an antidote I would recommend the joyous lectures by Larry McEnerney (of the Chicago School of Writing) on the importance of writing as the means for experts to think deeply on a subject - ironically only available on YouTube video (though to give you a flavour there’s a transcript of one of his best ones here: https://singjupost.com/the-craft-of-writing-effectively-larry-mcenerney-transcript/?singlepage=1 ).
I agree with your reservations about the oral culture thesis. It doesn't seem right to say that language is becoming more mnemonic. Of all the faculties, memory has been most thoroughly outsourced to technology. I think it would almost be truer to say that language is tending towards the anti-mnemonic. The language of social media is meant to grab your attention for a moment and then be forgotten; if it were too memorable it would clog the process of continuous consumption.
Also, one of the main characteristics of oral cultures is continuity, the slow accrual of tradition. There are songs sung in Appalachia today that have a continuous chain of oral transmission going back to medieval Scotland. Members of an oral culture inherit a way of living and thinking that has been finely tuned to their environment over centuries. Our culture, on the other hand, is pre-eminently fluctuating, ephemeral.
One could argue that we are hyper-literate, insofar as we almost vindicate Socrates' attack on writing: "This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves... you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing".
My smart phone story. When I was writing a book recently, I managed (to my surprise) to be disciplined about phone and social media use. No distractions while I concentrated on the book, for about a year and a half. Then, when it was all done, I went back to my old ways; head down, scrolling, posting, checking. Almost immediately, my brain had what felt like a spasm. My concentration and memory went haywire. I felt depressed. I forgot things all the time. Did daft things like drive off without paying for petrol. The worst passed after a few months, and it may have been a more straightforward reaction to stopping concentrating on that one thing, the book. But it felt to me like my brain crunching the gears as it rewired itself to short-term thinking, seeing the world in 240 characters rather than paragraphs, and a bombardment of images and videos. I still feel like I’m at about 80% of where I was, mid-book. Please keep up your campaign, so important!
Great article -- I too am a very big fan of Ong's Orality and Literacy.
Ted Chiang has a great short story that fictionalizes Ong's story about Tiv genealogies ("The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling") and combines it with a futuristic story about being able to accurately record all our life events. Really well done.
Also, have you come across The Gutenberg Parenthesis by Jeff Jarvis? This is about the ideas developed by Lars Ole Sauerberg and Tom Pettitt of the University of Southern Denmark. The Gutenberg parenthesis represents the five hundred years between the invention of the printing press and the rise of the internet, in which the printed word and the bound text dominated human culture in the West.
Their idea is that this period is just a short-term blip in how humans communicate and exchange ideas. With the invention of the internet, we are now engaged in various forms of electronic, digitally mediated communication, which moves society away from static, stable, closed texts, which are the property of a single author, toward a form of secondary orality, with texts that are more fluid, less stable, and reflect the input of multiple individuals. Tom Pettitt says "if one wishes to know how we will communicate in the future, the answer seems to be: like a medieval peasant"
There's a good talk by him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-zzkgsKOBk&ab_channel=MITComparativeMediaStudies%2FWriting
Thank you. I've wondered about reading The Gutenberg Parenthesis but wasn't sure it was worth it. But if you really recommend it I will get a copy. It sounds interesting from what you say
It's a great overview, with loads of detail, but he's probably more optimistic than I am about the new phase we're entering. I've enjoyed reading Tom Pettitt's more academic stuff as well, and just as much.
(e.g., tiny.cc/tewa001 )
Thank you again! The Walter Ong book sounds fascinating, if depressing. As an antidote I would recommend the joyous lectures by Larry McEnerney (of the Chicago School of Writing) on the importance of writing as the means for experts to think deeply on a subject - ironically only available on YouTube video (though to give you a flavour there’s a transcript of one of his best ones here: https://singjupost.com/the-craft-of-writing-effectively-larry-mcenerney-transcript/?singlepage=1 ).
Oh i will have a look - thank you!
Thank you so much. Consistently rewarding, helpful insights.
thank you for reading!
Thanks James for another fascinating column! Very interesting about oral culture, have already forwarded it to my film maker cousin in South Africa!
Also so thrilled that you like Larkin as much as I do as I’m the lone wolf in my family who does. Also, fabulous poem!
Thank you! It's wonderful isnt it!
I agree with your reservations about the oral culture thesis. It doesn't seem right to say that language is becoming more mnemonic. Of all the faculties, memory has been most thoroughly outsourced to technology. I think it would almost be truer to say that language is tending towards the anti-mnemonic. The language of social media is meant to grab your attention for a moment and then be forgotten; if it were too memorable it would clog the process of continuous consumption.
Also, one of the main characteristics of oral cultures is continuity, the slow accrual of tradition. There are songs sung in Appalachia today that have a continuous chain of oral transmission going back to medieval Scotland. Members of an oral culture inherit a way of living and thinking that has been finely tuned to their environment over centuries. Our culture, on the other hand, is pre-eminently fluctuating, ephemeral.
One could argue that we are hyper-literate, insofar as we almost vindicate Socrates' attack on writing: "This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves... you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing".
Hi James, the F23 Pro sounds good... I can't find one anywhere at the moment!
I misspoke - should have said F21 pro. I had to get mine on AliExpress which I was somewhat dubious about but my experience was completely fine