The end of writing?

Heather Cass White

Writing itself is a technology, and a fairly recent one, that decimated older forms of communication and experience, and created new ones that shape the world as we currently understand it.

Heather Cass White, Books Promiscuously Read

We probably don't think of writing as a technology, yet for most of human history, writing did not exist. Human beings made do, however. Then it existed but only for an educated few. Eventually it became widespread, Wherever there are schools, children learn to write. The world is better because of writing, but is literacy essential for civilization to continue?

Not all technology lasts forever. The wheel and fire may be permanent. The eight-track tape not so much. What about writing? It seems inconceivable that writing could become lost, but there are disturbing signs.

One is the fact that children are no longer being taught to sign their own names. Today most writing is done using keyboards, and most reading is done with words reproduced on keyboards. Young people today cannot read their grandmother's letters or diaries. They may never want to, of course, but historians and biographers of the future may need to. What if they can't? For that matter, what if nobody cares?

So many college graduates know little about history or great books. Other than texting, they do little writing. Artificial intelligence can do the writing for them. Why bother?

It seems unlikely that writing — or reading — will disappear altogether any time soon, but it seems conceivable that a return to the Middle Ages could be possible, a time when only the educated few know how to read and write. Most people, because of new technology, won't need to.

White writes, "If reading disappears, something else will take its place. Not its precise place; if reading were lost, much that is valuable would be lost. But we would get over it, or successive generations would, and whatever replaced it would have advantages we can't imagine."

Before literacy, most people didn't miss it, just as we didn't miss home computers or cell phones until they became a necessary part of modern living. What Heather Cass White says about the disappearance of writing is disturbing, but it could be true.