Literacy in the digital age

“O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children, have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth […]”

It’s a funny thing that Socrates, one of the world’s foremost thinkers about whom so much has been written, was not a fan of the written word. Certainly, a part of this has to be influenced by the fact that writing itself was “new” in Socrates’ time, at least in comparison to the oral tradition of teaching and passing on skills and information, with which Socrates was adept. But Socrates also provided compelling reasons for his view: for him, the written word was inferior as a teaching tool to speech because it was not immediate or interactive – the written word cannot respond to questions like a philosopher can reply to an interlocutor. A written text cannot answer the question: “What do you mean?”

We are eternally fortunate that Socrates’ student Plato was a writer, because otherwise it is highly unlikely that any of Socrates’ teachings would have been passed down to us. In the year 2025, where the “written word” can be delivered by a large-language model masquerading as “intelligent” and appear to answer our every question, it is more important than ever before to possess the necessary tools to effectively make sense of the world and its meanings. In short, at present, learning literacy is of the highest importance. It is small wonder that the theme of this year’s International Literacy Day is “Promoting literacy in the digital era.”

The concept of literacy is one that is constantly changing, no less so with the advent of computers and the internet than with the arrival of writing. Literacy is commonly used now to mean competency in a specific field, not necessarily knowing one’s letters: computer literacy, media literacy, visual literacy… these are just a subset of the areas where the concept of literacy has been applied.

This doesn’t downplay literacy in the traditional sense, any more than the appearance of the written word made learning to speak any less valuable. Even in the digital age, the easiest way to gain access to information – to educate one’s self – is through the page, whether a webpage or a physical one. Learning how to read and write is a core skill, and as I wrote about in my July column, it must be a priority of our government – particularly in the early years to avoid the compounding of learning deficits and to provide a firm base for future education. International Literacy Day is a good time to reaffirm our commitment to teaching reading and writing, and giving them access to the books and materials they need to put that skill into practice.

But as this year’s theme shows, it is also important to recognize that literacy now is about more than just the printed page. Knowing how to read and write but being unable to access digital texts, comprehend computers or navigate the internet is an immense handicap. The UNESCO’s statement on this year’s theme emphasizes how digitization is a double-edged sword: it is capable of empowering and enfranchising people, particularly the marginalized – but it also is capable of creating a “double marginalization” for those excluded from literacy training in both traditional and digital forms.

The digital world also carries with it its own issues of privacy, biases and surveillance. While many technological advancements were created to make things faster, easier and more convenient, without the proper training and tutelage, these can end up doing more harm than good.

The advent of the so-called “generative AI,” particularly the now ubiquitous large language model (LLM) called ChatGPT and the Gemini model of Google, has made it all the more urgent for literacy training beyond the ability to type words in a text box. Many large language models are created with the goal of creating the “plausible” and not the “true,” the “expected” and not the “factual.” We have entered an era where in solving some of the deficiencies of the written word, we have created the very deceptions Socrates was afraid of.

Teaching our children how to read and write, giving them stories that expand their world views and connect them to our common humanity… this is an urgent task. But almost as urgent is to equip them – and their parents and grandparents – with the tools necessary to make sense of the digital deluge, to critically evaluate digital content for its reliability and veracity and to make ethical decisions about engaging with it or passing it on. Without these essential tools, this training in new literacies, our people will go defenseless into a realm where billions of dollars are spent creating things that, as Socrates might put it, are “not truth, but only the semblance of truth.”

Words can and should unite us in understanding. But to truly understand each other, we must be able to better tell the truth, from its semblance, or from the lies meant to divide. That is the literacy we should all aim for.