A fellow employee that's taking a serious look at the relation  of  new media within relation to Orality   ( basically pre literate cultures) and whether these new means of communication are moving us back in that direction.

 When you have machines to recall , totally,  the utility of our continued scratchings on paper seems to diminish. I wonder how long it will take the institutions   that teach neat, slow  cursive handwriting still persist in this follow when it's so rare that I have to create anything other than neat block capitals or a signature which ties in nicely to a post on the future of keyboards  which could use a little comment "love".  Also  give the A New Literacy? post a whirl since sets the stage for many of the proceeding posts.

One consideration within my large discussion and interest of new media (NM) as a return to orality is that it requires a new literacy. Clearly, I do not believe that the advent of podcasting and comparable trends are returning us to a solely oral culture. You can’t unknow what you know. That is, we have come this far with technological advancements in communication  (Plato to papyrus to pencils to programming to projectors to processors to podcasts). Short of events following some apocalyptic future, we are not going to throw away all such communication technologies and go back to solely oral exchanges.

It's a fascinating read   go check it out.

Time’s Blog