Human Consciousness

When Walter Ong says that "more than any other single invention, writing has transofrmed human consciousness," on page 78 of "Orality and Literacy," he means that the way we see writing (i.e. the typeface it's in, the color, the shape, the spacing), affects how we interpret the passage. One of the most eye-opening parts of Ong's book, for me, was the way that I've never thought about how the way the words look subconsciously change the way I think of the passage.

Before we had all the technology that we do today, speeches were held in high regard by the general public as the main means to convey and share ideas and thoughts. When the spoken word began to be put down on paper, there began to be more than just the words to consider. All the things I mentioned above, the typeface, spacing, etc., gave people more things to consider. It made people aware of the ways in which writing had the ability to do more than spoken word, it could convey meanings through the way it looked.

I don't even know if this is a legitimate comparison, but cell phones were an invention that also opened up human consciousness. Before there were cell phones, there were people who relied on landlines to talk and before that there was just snail mail. People now realize that they can walk out of the house and always be connected to somebody through their cell phone. They can check their e-mail, listen to music, or call somebody up from anywhere and we've come to rely on that. The way we plan things now is different, our whole consciousness has shifted to where we don't make plans before leaving the house, we can just call and make plans, we don't have to worry about maps or writing down information we may need because we can look it up online via cell phone.

While these two inventions, writing and cell phones, are very different, they have both shaped the way that we either interpret what we're seeing or the way in which we go about our daily lives...if that makes any sense...