2-9-09 Freewrite

Ong's statement that "writing has transformed human consciousness" means that the technology of writing has transformed the way that people think, work, and live. As we have discussed in previous classes, writing and text surround us at almost all times. The knowledge of literacy shapes our society in a much different way than it would be in what Ong calls a "purely oral culture."
Another invention that has greatly transformed human consciousness is that of the computer. Even though the two can be considered to be closely related, I would put the size of the computer's impact in the same range as that of writing. The computer has shaped the way that our society thinks and functions. We depend on computers, much as we do on writing, every day; in fact, most of the the printed text that we see on a daily basis comes from a computer. Computers are used in classrooms in Kindergarten and in doctoral studies and are also used in virtually every workplace in modern society. Computers and writing can be used for a wide variety of activities such as creating a business plan or composing a song. Much like writing, the invention of the computer has enabled new ideas, new discoveries, and other new inventions.