My mother came to America to get her degrees, one of which is in computer science. Despite still trying to learn English, she aced all her classes. Her only issue was that she could not use the computers meant to test her codes; she was slow at typing (the “poking at the keyboard in 0.25 slowmo with just index fingers” type of slow) and at the beginning didn’t even know how to turn a computer on. In the end, her professor offered to insert the codes she wrote on paper.
It’s been a couple of decades since then. Yet, she will still call me when I’m out to ask how to force quit an application on her MacBook.
The criteria(?) for digital literacy
The reason I bring this up is to assess: Does my mother have digital literacy? Based off my understanding of the criteria Doug Eyman established in “Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice,” she does not. Even after all his “rambling,” going over multiple definitions of literacy and digital-literacy-wannabes, he does not outright dedicate even one sentence to give us a concrete definition. He simply explains that it entails being capable at writing and reading “with a number of sign systems (e.g., coded web pages, video, audio, image, animation).” (My mother does not fall under this criterion; while she’s great at coding, it’s a miracle if she can remember Google search exists. So, she may have some of the required literacies, but certainly not all.) And then, he helps build an understanding of this definition in our heads by using others’ stances on the digital and literacy.
I think this open-endedness is purposeful. He acknowledges that literacies are malleable and subject to change with time. Especially in the case of digital spaces, this is true. (Check your phone right now; I’m sure there’s already an app that needs updating.) Near the end of the “digital literacy” section in his article, he even brings up “multiliteracies.” With this, I will provide what I feel he is trying to say: Achieving digital literacy requires a multitude of literacies, like how an onion is not whole without its many layers.
Some such literacies I understood as a pre-requisite to, or part of, digital literacy are: computer literacy, for it is impossible to access digital spaces without such a device; media literacy, since it’s not possible to accurately write or read sign systems without the knowledge and context this provides; and website-related literacy, because this gives further insight on how to read and write sign systems. And knowing how to code, like my mother does, may also be among the required literacies to unlocking digital literacy.
Cue the crisis
Eyman has not peeled back enough of the onion’s skin (metaphorically). Like I’ve said earlier, though, he likely has his reasons. But the lack of stability of his indirect definition leaves us with a lot of questions. Most of all: Do we actually have digital literacy, like most of us have confidently come to believe? I’m comfortable with saying yes in my own case, so long as Eyman doesn’t verify that coding literacy is required. (Woe to me if he does.) After all, if an ex-chronically-online kid doesn’t have it, then who does?
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