In Praise of Digital Dyslexia
ROBIN HOLTOM
I have a condition that might be described as Digital Dyslexia. I panic when a computer announces that I have forgotten my password or, worse still, when I have performed an ‘illegal operation’. I still prefer to write a cheque or use cash than go through the humiliating process of paying money to an account which is new to my bank. On such occasions my computer invokes excessive digital diligence to ensure that I am not a criminal. I resent this and above all I resent the speed with which I have to do everything on a computer.
My digital dyslexia may be age related but there is evidence, which is reassuring to me, of early onset digital dyslexia in some younger people.
When the printing press was invented 500 years ago and printed books began to be commonplace, a comparable massive disruption of information technology must have taken place. The biggest impact of printing then was the translation of the Bible from scholarly Latin into local national languages. In the 16th century the process of change in communication through printing was slow and the change was widely resisted. William Tyndal who made the first English translation of the Bible was executed by Henry VIII for his efforts and it was years before the Bible was eventually permitted to be printed in English.
Pictures and Stories
I suppose if I had been living then, a 16th century digital dyslexic with no particular religious affiliation, I would have preferred the Bible to stay in Latin. Biblical experts could worry about the words while the rest of us could enjoy the pictures and stories. This division between words and pictures may even have provided the underpinning of the endless wars which began between Catholics and Protestants and characterised the next 300 years of European history. The division is still not entirely extinguished in Northern Ireland, and confrontation between word and image certainly is alive and well among Islamists who see images of the human form as idolatry and may feel alienated by those of us less confined to the word.
But in the digital world, words are in charge. You cannot Google an unusual shape or colour. You have to translate it into words first. If I go for a walk in a wood, I am attracted to effects of light or shapes but they do not meekly submit to any dictionary of images. This limitation of digital media has a constricting effect on our imagination and our communications. Politicians win elections with three-word slogans because we have become anxiously addicted to the impatient commands of digital media and have lost the habit of reasoned and leisurely discussion.
A Thousand Words
Images take longer to make than words. The painter Samuel Palmer claimed that by one simple metaphor, “Monumental Oak,” the poet could describe a tree more vividly than the painter, who might take weeks to make his picture of an oak tree look monumental. Visual ‘language’ is slow and complex. I don’t think it would be possible to make a radio commentary on a snooker match for example. But recent developments in photography, printing and digital media have sped up even the making of images, though in a bleakly stylised fashion. The speed of communication now seems to accelerate indefinitely. We live our lives in an almost mythical fashion and, like pagan gods and goddesses, we fly through the air, communicate without visible means of contact between us and even have superhuman powers of destruction when required. Our medicines enable us to live longer and perhaps even become immortal eventually.
Global Village
Despite this, psychologically we have a parochial and unimaginative response to this power and overlook the wider responsibilities that it requires from us. The global village in which we live is still obsessed with trivial gossip and introspective parish politics. As our material power has expanded, our psychology has shrivelled. Alongside the mythic speed of communicating comes an equal and opposite dogged and unimaginative self obsession. Any slowing down of our headlong rush to the nemesis of climate catastrophe, in particular, cannot be successful without seeking an antidote to this worship of Speed and the delusions of omnipotence it generates.
For reasons I cannot begin to understand, our Government has decided to spend around £100 billion on getting people from London to Birmingham and from Birmingham to London a few minutes faster. Faster, and even faster broadband is absolutely necessary apparently. Moreover, by the same principle, we should spend another £250,000 imprisoning two Just Stop Oil demonstrators who slowed down the M25 for a few hours. Speed is rewarded. Slowing down is punished. Ordinary taxpayers foot the bill for both these capers -whichever side of the arguments they stand.
Digital Dominance
Are we running towards some glorious future, or are we running away from recognising the contradictions we dare not examine? I worked for many years in a psychiatric hospital where it was often the case that people wandered around talking to people who were not present. I got used to it in that setting. Now when people walk around with hands-free phones talking to people, I have got used to that too. From time to time (this being St Leonards) I notice someone who does not have a hands-free phone talking to people who are not present. I cannot completely separate the two kinds of people. They are on a similar spectrum of withdrawing into self-preoccupation. A more sinister aspect of digital dominance is the case recently where 700 sub- postmasters were accused of fraud owing to a failure of the Horizon computer system. The trust in the machine appears to have overwhelmed common sense and compassion.
At What Cost?
The spectacular expansion of digital media has, paradoxically, contributed to the obsession we now have with ‘privacy’. A new online purchase expects a password and I am frequently required to testify that “I am not a robot.” This compulsory digital caution has raised our threshold of mistrust and paranoia which has, in turn, leaked into other areas of our lives. Why, for example, do new houses have six-foot garden fences which prohibit neighbours passing the time of day with each other? Why does almost no one give lifts to hitch hikers? Why do television news programmes about school students avoid showing their faces but only coyly show their legs – a peculiarly perverse ’respect for privacy.’ These, to me, idiotic things erode social cohesion and trust. Is all this a price worth paying for our new speedy communications?
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