I’ve finally gotten around to reading through Ong’s “Orality and Literacy” (I skimmed it as an undergrad), a book which compares primary oral cultures to literate cultures, weighing the influence of technology. Mott’s point, that we need not teach students to learn information, but rather information-finding skills, reminded me of a passage that I highlighted in the early section, “Some Psychodynamics of Orality: the development of text, though “conservative in its own ways” ultimately “frees the mind of conservative tasks, of its memory work, and thus enables the mind to turn itself to new speculation”.

I expect this idea may be elaborated on later in the book, but as I read this I automatically wondered if instant access to networked information obviates “memory work” (i.e. memorization of information) even further, and thereby further freeing the mind for “new speculation”. If so, we can understand this as ultimately an advantage, a progression leading to future intellectual and cultural developments.

The next question: are we yet ready to recognize these “new speculations” for what they are? For what they and might be?

Ong reminds that literate individuals and cultures do lose intellectual and cultural abilities that are apparent in primary oral, and so we might expect similar losses as we become an instant-networks culture. What might these losses be? I know a number of critics have pointed to attention span, “flow”, sustained and deep reading, traditional concepts of plagiarism, etc.