the craziness of new literacies

It used to be that if you wanted to communicate with someone, you went and visited them. If they left and went very far away, you might never see them or talk to them again. You would thus focus on those within reach. Later in time, you could write to them, then you could call them. Now the explosion has happenned to such an extent that one can become completely confounded. My entry won't be as hypertextual or multidimensional as my fellow group mates, I will stick to the basics of writing... but in that recent medium, the blog.

From chat rooms, to IM, to blogs, to discussion boards, personal spaces, fanfiction sites (loved looking at a few of those), and who knows what else, people are communicating and making connections, in many ways, to suit need, their personalities, the moment.

Through our readings a whole world, an ever expanding one has opened up to me. And I find myself somewhere in the middle of the road questioning my motives. Through the readings, I find that, although the media and styles differ, the essence remains the same. We want to communicate, we want answers, we want to exchange ideas, we want acknowledgment and validation. I am bowled over by the myriad of possibilities out there, and we have only scratched the surface of an ever growing mountain.

What seems to be happening is that in this day and age is that, to become part of the community we must embrace the new ICTs and the literacies they entail lest we fall behind, and not be able to communicate, find the answers or exchange ideas, and no longer be acknowledged or validated. There is, however, a whole other world that is in that position, toiling away along with the cycles of the seasons, not being bothered or able to get digital, not even knowing about what digital is. What a crazy world we are living in... and how will it continue to evolve?