Hannah Szabo
Professor Leake
Readers of Efficiency
The first written language known to
man emerged over five thousand years ago in modern-day Iraq. The written
symbols, known as cuneiform script, came from the Sumerians and consisted of
pictograms engraved onto clay tablets with a sharpened reed. The clay tablets were
then baked hard in an oven (About). Cuneiform script began as a method for
recording information about taxes and crops, but it eventually became used for
trade, astrological, and leisure related purposes (Writing). The ancient
Sumerian process of cuneiform writing required a tedious attention to detail
and a significant amount of time. Hard slabs of clay must be formed into
tablets, reeds must be diligently sharpened, pictograms must be carved legibly,
and finally the tablets must be baked in order for complete cuneiform
communication. Due to the enormous variety of pictograms in the cuneiform script,
a strict attention to detail necessitated effective writing. Eventually the
evolution of the cuneiform script provided for a quicker writing practice. For example,
the number of pictograms was reduced from fifteen hundred to six hundred, and
the pictograms transitioned into a phonological alphabet (The Evolution). The
Sumerian cuneiform language, although not prevalent today, initiated the start
of many other written languages. Today the world is home to more than
sixty-eight hundred languages, although not all are written (International). In
any case, the evolution of written communication begins an interesting topic
for describing the conditions of current-day reading and writing. I argue the
emergence of literary-related technology, the printing press, typewriter, and
computer, creates a society dependent on efficiency, ultimately resulting in a population
living in a self-help world. Before I
begin to argue my point I find it useful to first define literacy in order to
explore the connection between technological literary improvements and the
development of a self-help society.
Literacy can be thought of as a skill acquired
through various means and for various reasons that allows for effective written
communication between social groups or institutions. Additionally it can be
thought of as the formal and fundamental process by which society communicates.
Two important factors in these definitions of literacy must be highlighted.
First, literacy contains a social component. Literacy scholar and esteemed
psychology professor at the Graduate School and University Center of the City
University of New York Sylvia Scribner says it best when she states, “Literacy
abilities are acquired by individuals only in the course of participation in
socially organized activities with written language” (Scribner 8). Scribner’s
statement refers to the fact that without a social aspect an individual lacks
the resources needed to become literate. There would be no need for
communication in a world of isolation. Interaction between individuals provides
the foundation for which literacy prospers. Second, literacy functions as a
means of communication. Communication through literacy allows individuals to
transfer information, instructions, ideas, beliefs, and feelings. This transfer
of information occurs through language written by one person and read by
another. The social aspect and communicative purpose of literacy intertwine
with one another and thus provide a clear definition of this abstract topic. A
precise delineation of the word will help facilitate the remainder of this
essay as we investigate how efficient literary technology has crippled the need
for interpersonal assistance.
The
vast improvements of literary technology seen between the Sumerians of 3000
B.C. and the world of 2013 A.D. highlight the value placed on the concept of
efficiency. This process of modern technological improvement can be divided
into three main events each showcasing a newer, quicker, and more efficient way
to engage in literacy. These technological improvements include the printing
press, typewriter, and computer.
The
printing press’s invention in the mid fifteenth century allowed for pieces of
literature to be produced in mass quantities. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in
Germany, the printing press was the first technology involving movable type
(Inventor). With the ease of simply restructuring letters onto a mold, multiple
copies of the same document could quickly be produced. The previous method of generating
literature required a penman to carefully write each character one at a time,
wasting an unnecessary amount of time transferring individual characters by
hand. The printing press both highlights and initiates the value of efficiency
because it reduced the amount of time required to produce a book.
The
availability of literature increased with the invention of the printing press, and
people gained greater access to books. The demand for all varieties of books
grew: almanacs became increasingly popular, romance novels abounded, and printed
musical books transpired (Renaissance). Society began to self educate in the
era of the printing press as access to literature proliferated. Complete
reliance on others to accommodate learning was no longer necessary; the
purchase of an inexpensive almanac replaced the consultation of those with
higher education. It is here that we see the start of a self-help society as a
result of greater productivity via the printing press.
Within
four hundred years the advent of the typewriter further pushed society into a
mindset focused on efficiency. In an effort to combat his striking employees at
the Western Union Telegraph Company, Christopher Sholes set out on a mission to
create a machine able to automatically print letters and numbers with the stroke
of a key. Approved and patented in 1871, Sholes’s typewriter sped up daily life
and revolutionized business (The Earliest). Everything from legal rulings to
graduation requirements began to rely on the typewriter. While the printing
press mainly allowed for effective copying of books, the typewriter allowed for
the effective printing of almost all literature mediums, and much of society
viewed the typewriter as the quickest method for writing literature.
As
with the printing press, the typewriter further increased the convenience of collecting
information because the usefulness of this new machine produced literature at
staggeringly fast speeds. In direct accordance to economic theory, the increase
in productivity via the typewriter drove down the costs of books. Both the
wealthy as well as the poor could educate themselves with books. People relied
more on their own methods of date gathering to overcome an issue or better
their daily lives than they did on others. Again we see society embodying
self-help characteristics as they expanded their libraries and knowledge base.
The
next technology to emerge, the computer, most thoroughly encompasses the ideals
of efficiency in the modern age. Although the advent of the computer cannot be
attributed to a specific inventor or pinpointed to a specific time, the
emergence of the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC, in 1951 initiated
change among society. The UNIVAC computer gave institutions the tools needed to
foster an increasing reliance on efficiency. Businesses and government now
trusted their UNIVAC device to gather and organize items such as defense
intelligence and payroll applications (Trueman). Society’s need for speed
escalated as computers developed and the Internet materialized into what we
have in 2013. Evidence for the Internet’s popularity abounds. After a quick
Google search I discovered that seventy-six percent of the United State’s
population uses the Internet regularly and an individual Internet user will
visit over twenty-six hundred different websites per month (Smith). The abundance
of material available on the Internet developed readers who desire quick
snippets of information over detailed articles. Dissatisfied with time
consuming reading, readers prefer to “take in information the way the Net
distributes it: in swiftly moving streams of particles” (Carr 1). The New York Times, for example, recently
replaced pages two and three of their daily paper with quick summaries of news
headlines instead of regular length articles. When asked the rational behind
the decision to drastically reduce the length of these articles, design
director Tom Bodkin said that these shortcuts “would give the harried reader a
quick taste of the day’s news, sparing them the less efficient method of
actually turning the pages and reading the articles” (Carr 4). Shockingly, I
relate to this new mode of information gathering as well. I find myself
preferring “The World this Week” section, which gives highlights of the week’s
events in the beginning of The Economist,
to reading the full-length articles. Of course, I read “The World this
Week” via my online Economist subscription
or with my iPhone app so that I am able to access this information at my
leisure. I also prefer the condensed summaries found on Twitter when wanting to
learn about the newest updates in the lives of my fellow tweeters. These
examples give clear insight into the relationship society has with efficiency.
The
increasing production efficiency of literature, whether the literature came
from the printing press in the fifteenth century, the typewriter in the
nineteenth century, or the Internet of the Information Age, correlates to the
increasing accessibility of literature. The increase in available literature
deepens society’s reliance on efficiency and self-help. The need for personal
interaction with others dwindles as escalating quantities of information become
available with a simple Google search. Why would I need to pay to visit a
doctor to ask him how to alleviate my sunburn when I can ask the Webmd.com? Or
why should I call my mom to ask her the proper way to sew a button back onto my
blouse when YouTube can give me videos explaining, step-by-step, how to sew?
Pretty much any tidbit of information can be found on the Internet, and
therefore reliance on others evolves into a more efficient culture of
self-help.
From
the printing press to the Internet, distribution of literature has changed
drastically. More efficient methods of producing books and publishing
information resulted in a society where an emphasis on gathering the most
amount of information in the quickest amount of time becomes king. With so much
data available at our fingertips it is no wonder why people lessen their
dependence on others and begin depending more on their own ability to find
information to overcome an issue. Relationships with machines seem to dominate
relationships with people. Whether this progression into a self-help world
turns out to be for the better, well, we have yet to find out.
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