illiterate war
The Nintendo war (a cliché revisited)
The look that kills

Book Five The Interactive Future: Individual, Community, and Society in the Age of the Web Transcending literacy Being in language The wall behind the Wall The message is the medium From democracy to media-ocracy Self-organization The solution is the problem. Or is the problem the solution? From possibilities to choices Coping with choice Trade-off Learning from the experience of interface

A Sense of the Future
Cognitive energy
Literacy is not all it's made out to be
Networks of cognitive energy
The University of Doubt
Interactive learning
Footing the bill
A wake-up call
Consumption and interaction
Unexpected opportunities

Foreword

No other time than ours has had more of the future and less of the past in it. The heat and beat of network interactions and the richness of multimedia and virtual reality reflect this time more than do the pages you are about to read. I wish I could put in your hands the new book, suggested on the cover, as the first page following all those that make up the huge library of our literate accumulation of knowledge.

Let's us imagine that it exists. As I see it, the book would read your mind.as you pause on a thought and start formulating questions. It should enable you to come closer to the persons whose thoughts are mentioned here, either through further investigation of their ideas or by entering into a dialogue with them. We would be able to interact with many of the individuals making this fascinating present happen.

The emergence of a new civilization, freed from constraints borne by its members during a time to which we must bid farewell-this is the subject of the book. Science and technology are themes of this intellectual expedition, but the subject is the ever-changing human being. The civilization we are entering is no promised land, make no mistake about that. But it is a realm of challenge. Tentative upon entering the territory of new possibilities, we have no choice but to go ahead.

Some-the pioneers, inventors, entrepreneurs, even politicians of the so-called Third Wave-rush into it, unable to contain an optimism based on their own opportunistic enthusiasm (as real or fake as it might be). The young lead, unburdening themselves of the shackles of an education which made the least contribution to their innovative accomplishments.

Others hesitate. They don't even notice the chains of a literate heritage, a heritage that buffers them, as it buffers us all at various times, from the often disquieting changes we experience at all levels of our existence. In the palace of books and eternity, we were promised love and beauty, prosperity, and above all permanence.

Disinheriting ourselves from all that was, we are nostalgic for our lost sense of continuity and security. Still, we cannot help feeling that something very different from what we used to expect is ahead of us. We are excited, though at times apprehensive.

It might be that the cutting-edge language and look of Wired, the magazine of the Netizens, is more appropriate to the subject than is the elaborate prose of this book. But this is not yet another product of the cottage industry of predictions, as we know them from Naisbitt, Gilder, or the Tofflers.

To explain without explaining away the complexity of this time of change was more important to me than to ride the coattails of today's sound-byte stars. Solid arguments that suggest possibilities fundamentally different from what they are willing to accept, or even entertain, make for a more deeply founded optimism.

If you get lost along the intellectual journey to which this book invites, it can be only my fault. If you agree with the argument only because it tired you out, it will be my loss. But if you can argue with me, and if your argument is free of prejudice, we can continue the journey together.

Try reaching me, as my thoughts try to reach you through this book. Unfortunately, I am not yet able to hand you that ideal book that would directly connect us. Short of this, here is an address you can use:

[email protected]. Let's keep on touch!

Literacy in a Changing World

Thinking about alternatives

Preoccupation with language is, in fact, preoccupation with ourselves as individuals and as a species. While many concerns, such as terrorism, AIDS, poverty, racism, and massive migration of populations, haunt us as we hurry to achieve our portion of well-being, one at least seems easier to allay: illiteracy. This book proclaims the end of literacy, as it also accounts for the incredible forces at work in our restlessly shifting world. The end of literacy-a chasm between a not-so-distant yesterday and the exciting, though confusing, tomorrow-is probably more difficult to understand than to live with. Reluctance to acknowledge change only makes things worse. We notice that literate language use does not work as we assume or were told it should, and wonder what can be done to make things fit our expectations. Parents hope that better schools with better teachers will remedy the situation. Teachers expect more from the family and suggest that society should invest more in order to maintain literacy skills. Professors groan under the prospect of ill-prepared students entering college. Publishers redefine their strategies as new forms of expression and communication vie for public attention and dollars. Lawyers, journalists, the military, and politicians worry about the role and functions of language in society. Probably most concerned with their own roles in the social structure and with the legitimacy of their institutions, they would preserve those structures of human activity that justify literacy and thus their own positions of power and influence. The few who believe that literacy comprises not only skills, but also ideals and values, say that the destiny of our civilization is at stake, and that the decline in literacy has dreadful implications. Opportunity is not part of the discourse or argument.

The major accomplishment of analyzing illiteracy so far has been the listing of symptoms: the decrease in functional literacy; a general degradation of writing skills and reading comprehension; an alarming increase of packaged language (clichés used in speeches, canned messages); and a general tendency to substitute visual media (especially television and video) for written language. Parallel to scholarship on the subject, a massive but unfocused public opinion campaign has resulted in all kinds of literacy enterprises. Frequently using stereotypes that in themselves affect language quality, such enterprises plead for teaching adults who cannot read or write, for improving language study in all grades, and for raising public awareness of illiteracy and its various implications. Still, we do not really understand the necessary character of the decline of literacy. Historic and systematic aspects of functional illiteracy, as well as language degradation, are minimally addressed. They are phenomena that affect not only the United States. Countries with a long cultural tradition, and which make the preservation and literate use of language a public institution, experience them as well.

My interest in the subject of illiteracy was triggered by two factors: the personal experience of being uprooted from an East European culture that stubbornly defended and maintained rigid structures of literacy; and involvement in what are commonly described as new technologies. I ended up in the USA, a land of unstructured and flawed literacy, but also one of amazing dynamics. Here I joined those who experienced the consequences of the low quality of education, as well as the