Reading J. D. Applen’s section on speaking, writing, and literacy in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” brought up the fact that I never realized how much writing has shaped the way humans think. Originally I thought of writing just as a way of communication and to get assignments done. I never considered it to be a force that changed how people organize and think.
Writing, according to Applen, is “a cultural technology that transformed oral traditions into something more permanent and cumulative”; it goes beyond a neutral tool. Prior to writing, knowledge was spread orally, which caused it to be dependent on memory, making it vulnerable to changes or being lost. If you’ve ever played the game “Telephone,” you know how flimsy a story gets when it is passed from person to person. Telephone is a game where a message is whispered from one person to another, which causes it to become increasingly distorted by the end. Writing, on the other hand, has freed ideas from the limits of memory, allowing ideas to be reconsidered, challenged, and built on across generations.
What struck me most in Applen’s writing was his point that writing doesn’t just store knowledge; it changes the very structure of thought. At the same time, Applen noted that this shift also centralized power. As literacy often belonged to select groups who decided what was recorded and whose voices were preserved. This brings me back to a statement I heard,”the stories in history are normally told by the victors.” Like many I grew up learning that it was the strong Americans vs the evil Native Americans. That is not historically accurate. But that didn’t matter because the Americans won so they got to redesign the story their way.
Writing to me
Applen’s ideas about writing as a transformative force connected with younger me. I was a shy child that always felt ignored in large groups. Constantly terrified when I had to speak on the spot. Most of the time I felt like my ideas were disappearing before I could even understand them. I found that writing helped me slow down and organize my ideas. In the same way that Applen explains how early writing protected knowledge that otherwise would’ve been lost. Seeing my words on paper gave me a sense of stability and significance. Writing overall made me feel like I belonged to a bigger story.
What will our history say in 100 years
Telephone has now become digital. Modern tools like texting and social media are just another step in this long evolution of knowledge. Each new media shapes what we value, what we remember, and who gets heard. Understanding that history helps me think more critically about how I communicate today.
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