Oral and literate societies

Literacy I’ve once thought about it, how the world has altered from what it was to what it is contemporary. Certainly almost everyone has such thoughts now and then in their mind but what has come to my significant vitality, the consciousness of the literacy how is has become the ultimate way of communication across the globe as hole especially when it comes to formality (business, states) etc. this happened after I attendant a lecture. The lecturer had a presentation with the title “technology and historical change” from the course internet studies in University of KwaZulu Natal.

Centuries ago or as early as human existence on earth according to history or should I say scientists have declared that the first humans to live were communicating orally, and as time went they developed certain skills to communicate in a different way. They altered to communicate in writing; literacy was then born but not every society changed. The advantages of being within a society that is “illiterate” or “pre literate” as mentioned in the lecture meaning society without writing you’ll have high ability of memorizing. Plato a Greece philosopher was not happy with the development of writing; he felt that you’ll lose the ability to remember. True; imagine you are in an environment where you have to memorize anything anyone says to you that will definitely improve your memory to its ultimate best. Another advantage to this that illiterate societies they won’t have any “outsiders” informed about their lives, how they live in case they have enemies (war) etc.

However contemporary literacy has become one of the most things we use in our everyday life especially for those in the informal sector. Basically literacy forms the base of the modern society we live in today. The advantages of being in certain societies is that everything is written down thus in future it will be used by the upcoming generation to develop new notions from those previously developed. The public benefit from this being informed about what is going in their lives within their environment e.g. the media.