Greta Hansen

Recent Activity

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  Greta signed the petition | 13 days ago

  Apple: Protect Workers Making iPhones in Chinese Factories
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  Greta signed the petition | 5 months ago

  Stop my brother Troy Davis' Execution on Sep. 21.
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  Greta signed the petition | 5 months ago

  Stand up for New York Public Broadcasting and Pledge Your Support
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  Greta signed the petition | 5 months ago

  J.C. Penney: Don’t break your promise to families of workers who died making your clothes
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  Greta signed the petition | 7 months ago

  Tell Chase Bank: Don't Foreclose on Soldier's Father
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  Greta signed the petition | 10 months ago

  Call for the Release of Ai Weiwei
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  Greta commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Another Foray into Tech and Literacy: Contra The New Yorker

  Literature doesn't mean "fictional".  At its most basic (and what it meant in the survery I don't know), I think "creative literature" distinguishes itself from "noncreative literature".  At the most extreme this would be informational pamphets, appliance instructions, etc.  It isn't that tax collecting documents didn't support the rise of civilization.  There is Hammurabi's code.  Like you said there is the United States Constutition.  All the better if these documents also have elements of literary creativity.  But at base, they are documents which inform the construction of physical world directly.  A work of creative literature is one which informs the physical world through the world of the mind.  Although I wouldn't sell that as a full definition.
  
  
  Its my opinion that you're right: the definition of reading is changing.  What reading is is changing.  But so far reading has been identified with books.  So that reading does, in some sense, equal books, as it did before that equal scrolls.  Each change in technology makes the definition of reading different.  (You'll notice if you listen to a book on tape that your mental storage is different than when you've read off the pages.  This different also seems to exist between the internet and the book, although less extreme.)  Technology will inevitably transform what reading is to some degree.  But I don't see why you should condemn the old guard for trying to maintain what they appreciate about the book.
  
  
  Its great that grades and readings scores go up!  However I think No Child Left Behind taught us that standardized tests let so much pass through the cracks.
  
  
  (And as for privacy: some things (like reading a book as opposed to reading a blog) are more private than others and thankfully so.  Privacy is a right, and I'm very glad I have the privilege to it.)
  
  I guess my main point is this: a conservative/traditional approach to technological change is a very important perspective as society transforms.  If we want to archive our social memory, we'd better think about maintaining the memory infrastructure.