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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Literacy versus Computer Literacy
Message-ID: <1411@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Tue, 10-Mar-87 20:21:36 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.1411
Posted: Tue Mar 10 20:21:36 1987
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A disturbing trend that I've noticed in some of the recent postings to 
this group is that people are simultaneously equating computer literacy 
with literacy and also glossing over the larger problem of the class-
structuring they're imposing.

I'd like to spend some time here to talk about both these subjects.

** Literacy Versus Computer Literacy **

It is a common misconception among both the people within the computer
industry and those on the outside that computer literacy is a superset
of literacy.  I would like to argue that they are not at all related
in all but the most superficial sense.

First, let's look at what the word literacy means, to give us some sort
of anchor:

	literacy:  1. able to read and write
		   2. literary [of or relating to literature / versed in
		      literature - well read]
		   - polished, lucid.

While these might be casually tossed into the same definition in the 
Merriam Webster dictionary I got this from, I think they are talking
about some fundamentally different things and in fact that this is all
part of the same definition indicates just how widespread this confusion
is.

In a nutshell being able to read and write has *nothing*  to do with
being able to come across lucidly and polished.  To consider them 
facets of the same thing is to reject the potential for the 'uneducated'
to be considered as equals in society.

Similarly, this definition presupposes that to be 'literate' one has
to be well read in 'the literature'.  I disagree with this too - some
of the most lucid and brilliant people I've known haven't read much of
anything by way of 'the classics' or 'the literature'.

But rather than berating this point, how does it relate to computer
literacy?  An interesting question indeed.

The common conception of Computer Literacy is that it somehow measures 
the ability of the person to *program* the computer.  With the state of
technology and user interfaces and all today perhaps this is actually a
reasonable measure, but I think that the fundamental concept is something
more akin to:

	computer literacy is the ability to get the job done.

This means that if a person can use the computer in a manner that 
allows them to be completely ignorant of the workings of the machine, that
it isn't a bad thing.  Quite the contrary, in fact - for the computer to
be accepted as another tool in society, another utility, it *MUST* have
the ability for people to use it without having to understand the ramifications
of what they do and without having knowledge of how the task is actually
accomplished.

There are many analogies in our society - consider, for example, microwave
ovens.  Most of the people I know have one at home, but I'll bet that no-one
could coherently (or, dare I say it?  lucidly and in a polished manner)
explain how it works.  Or Compact Disk players.  Or Automobiles.  And on and
on.  As our artifacts have become more complex there has been less and less
need for an individual to really understand how things work.

So with this in mind, let's consider the comparision between literacy and
computer literacy.  In the context of the recent discussion, one could almost
define computer literacy as the ability to communicate via a computer.  For
now let's just accept this as a more specific working definition.

As we have seen and discussed, the limited bandwidth of computer communications
systems (e.g. mail and conferencing) has raised some problems with people
trying to communicate.  There just isn't enough space to transmit all the
elements of communication that we commonly associate with talking to a person
or group, including visual cues, verbal cues, and so on.

So what has happened is that we've evolved a purely text-based system that
relies on a number of iconographic symbols to transmit limited non-text
information (e.g. asterisks around words, etc).  With this context we've
come to find that those people who can express themselves by writing clearly
tend to come across best.  This isn't at all suprising.

>From this perspective we can see that computer literacy, in the sense of
electronic communication, is indeed a part of literacy.  Simply put: if you
can't write, you can't effectively use computers to communicate.

But what is wrong here is that we're assuming that this is the way it will
always be.  Yet we've discussed multi-media communications systems, and 
have had someone even talk about convincing artists and musicians to use 
computers as a way to communicate back and forth.

In twenty years I'll be able to sketch a drawing on my screen (or tablet, or
??) and send it to you.  No words will be associated with it.  I will be able
to send it by flipping through my list of faces until I find yours and saying
"yes" when the computer asks me "send it to Debra?".  You will receive it by
the computer telling you "Hey!  New mail from Dave!" and you will be able
to actually see it by simply flipping through the stack of incoming mail and
pressing the part of the screen that displays my message.  To print it you'll
be able to simply say "print it" or drag it across the screen to the little
printer picture.

In this context there is really nothing that we need English for, or any
written language, for that matter.  And as a consequence there is no need 
to be 'literate' to be able to function very well with computers (e.g. to 
be computer literate).

And this is not only a good thing, but is something that we MUST work towards.
Before computers really are a positive part of life they must be demonstrably
better than existing systems at letting people communicate and get tasks 
done.  And having to learn English (for example) is not the right move for a
poor family in the third world, or a handicapped person, or any one of a large
class of people.  We MUST keep these people in mind as we move forward in the
computer industry and we really need to disassociate the idea of literacy and
knowing English from the help that computers offer us in almost all facets of
our lives.


** The Computer Literati **

Still looking at the dictionary, Mirriam Webster defines literati as:

	literati: 1. the educated class
		  2. men of letters

In the computer world the literati are those few that can rummage around
in the internals of an operating system and solve the problems, or that
can create new software that is better and faster that the existing 
systems.  Traditionally this has been done with cryptic programming languages
like "C" and "Pascal" that are quite a few steps removed from how one
would describe the problem solution to a friend who spoke English (we're
not even going to consider the problems when you have only gestures and
non-verbal language available).

>From the very beginning, computers have encouraged a society made up of
a number of different classes, much more so than any other field.  Even
today, after thirty plus years of work in making computers friendly and
accessable to anyone, it's still quite tough to accomplish tasks with the
machine, and even more difficult to teach it new solutions.

So we have classes of computer users, from the so-called naive user to
the knowledgeable user, to the expert, to the 'wizard' and 'guru'.  There
are a number of people who would argue that this structure is necessary
to allow people to have a chance to learn a lot about a specific area
(for example 'networking protocols') but I disagree.  The problem here is
that we're saying something to the effect of "look how complex this 
situation is!  We'll need lots of people to understand it".  Instead if
we have the attitude of "look how complex this situation is!  Let's
simplify it!" we might just find that as time goes on everyone gets on to
more of an equal footing.

I believe that this is what the Apple Macintosh has done, in a very small
way.  They've taken the arcane operating system commands that are found,
say, in MS-DOS, and abstracted them to the point where people can function
quite well without ever having any understanding of the fundamental 
design and organization of the computer.  Furthermore, people can now 
write letters without having to 'learn the editor' and so on.

Consider the complexity and power of the Macintosh versus the size of
the documentation that it comes with...

Let's tie this in with the previous discussion of computer literacy
though...as we have seen, many people have associated literacy with
computer literacy, thereby implying that there is a 'computer literati'
or elite group of people who 'know' computers.

While there is no disagreement that there is indeed a group of people
in our society that 'know computers' better than the rest, the implications
of the word literati and the concept of an elite are disturbing.  Consider
being an earnest but poor student in the third world wanting to learn about
computer systems.  The limitation isn't in the hardward or software - that's
relatively easy to obtain (although it will most certainly not be the latest 
and greatest systems).  The difficulty is in figuring out what it all means.

It is an example of a larger problem of the tradeoff between the confusion 
of jargon and the necessity of being able to express specific technical 
ideas succinctly.  

Nonetheless, computer systems are too hard to understand and are very
hard to use to communicate, something done by *everyone* and therefore
something almost certainly to become one of the most common uses of a 
computer *if it's possible*.

And the 'computer literati' solution is to come up with better protocols
or faster phone lines, rather than systems that allow people to use the
computers without spending years figuring it all out.

Class structures shoud be an area of great concern.  We are all getting 
a bit smug due to our being part of the computer literati and are forgetting 
the rest of the world out there.

I look forward to more discussion on this.

						-- Dave Taylor --