When most people hear the word ‘Digital’, we immediately think of something that has to do with electronics and computers. Befrore I read Doug Eyman’s article, “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” I was also included in that group. Even the article itself mentions that “Digital’ is roughly synonymous with ‘electronic’ or ‘computerized’. Even the the article that, “Any system made up of individual elements satisfies the technical definition. Writing, Morse code, and the Braille alphabet are some examples of non-computer-based elements that fall under that term.
Not too many individuals know that thought that a pencil, and even writing would be categorized as digital? Knowing that a pencil has nothing to do with electronics. And also the fact that the form of writing did not come around until 3400 B.C. “Where did Writing Come From?” (Brown, 2021). Doug Eyman’s article also mentions the Braille alphabet as a digital element. It is a tactile system of reading and writing that was created to assist blind individuals. Those facts contradict the statement in the article, “The first digital computer, the ENIAC, appeared in 1945.” The number one item that people know to be digital came much later than the item that most people were not even aware belonged to that category.
Is It Digital? It all depends On Who You Ask
To get a deeper understanding of others’ thoughts on the subject. I took the initiative to survey a few of the elementary school students that I work with on two questions. 1- What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘Digital’? Out of the seven (7) students that I surveyed, I was shocked that five (5) of them responded either digits or numbers. The othe other two said, using online platforms. My surprize with their digits answer is because that in our discussion in class last week, no one was able to come up with that answer. My second question was true or false. “Writing is digital” The overall response was one hundred percent ‘no’. The results of reading the article, and conducted the experiment show classifying things based on what we currently know of the world can be misleading.
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