"Fetch, Boy"

While talking about the dangers that Plato and Socrates warned against the nature of writing, I doubted that they could have imagined a society like ours.  Not only are we wholly reliant on writing (thank you, professors), but in our digital age it has taken on a completely different form. 

Texting is an obvious writing skill (yes, I do believe it is a skill) that has the tendency to reduce our use of oratory.  I use texting to communicate with my parents when I’m in class or they’re in meetings.  My friends and I use it when we want to share funny jokes, but we don’t want to interrupt them.  There are great uses for it.  However, I know a young man who frequently asks girls out on dates over text message.  Not just once, but multiple times.  When I told my dad this, he exclaimed, “Gone are the days of chivalry when a boy would actually ask a girl.”  It made me think: If a new trend conflicts with long-standing societal morals, then it should send up red flags.

Second, I think of the internet as a medium of information.  In the age of the ancient Greeks, people would actually have to memorize information to be able to share it.  Today, Google is our best friend.  Anciently, a good orator’s ability was rated not necessarily by how well he remembered his speech, but by how he remembered information about his topic (quotes, anecdotes, etc.) and then formed it into a vibrant, evolving oration.  In our age, the challenge is to be able to sift through vast amounts of information.  We have sacrificed depth for breadth.  Perhaps this is necessary in our modern world.  But I believe that wisdom, unlike knowledge, cannot be retrieved from cyberspace effortlessly.