May 1998

First, we probably should define digital literacy, at least in the way that I’m using it. Digital literacy is the third in a triumvirate of “enabling technologies,” so to speak, that includes reading and media literacy. When I say it, I imagine people who know enough about technology that they no longer believe it is only understandable by geniuses, or that it is somehow “magic” and therefore beyond their comprehension.

What makes digital literacy important? When something is perceived as magic, people automatically bestow power upon the “magician,” whether or not that power is deserved and independent of who that power benefits.

Those who cannot read, for example, relinquish much of their ability to participate fully in society because so much of the information they need to participate (such as voter information, public services and road signs) comes in written form. Who might be interested in keeping them illiterate and why is not something I’ll get into here.

But where digital literacy is concerned, most people in American society, at least, have been bamboozled by technology propaganda simply because they have insufficient knowledge of the digital world to challenge the propagandists on their own turf. But once people can see the little wizard behind the curtain, they are free to make more reasonable choices — particularly about how they choose to weave technology into their lives.

The bottom line is that digital literacy provides the intellectual means to battle commercial and political propaganda about technology, which in turn provides new voices in a broad public debate about critical issues such as online privacy and security, free speech, ecological concerns and so on — the kind of informed debate that we hear today about issues such as health care reform and Social Security.

We should be teaching digital literacy in the same way we teach any other complex subject: by teaching its building blocks. Just like we teach English or math, we should find a way to teach the grammar and lexicon of computers and media. When I studied film in college, for example, it was most enlightening to learn the grammar of filmmaking, to see how my emotions were manipulated by various shots and effects.

Give people some basic understanding of how a computer chip works, and how it’s made, how software works and the difference between and operating system and an application, how the Internet snaps together and how interactive software and media design persuades and manipulates, and I guarantee we’ll start hearing a much higher quality, more interesting and useful debate about the effects of technology.