POINT OF VIEW-dec2016-push-button-culture

HSW17 HSW2

The transition from a stylus culture over a push-button culture to a "wipe" (touch) culture or the transition from a product culture into a consumer culture, or maybe not?
(1)
The human dealing with documents was in the 8000 years of history rather stable. De last 30 years we have seen a great opheaval: the transition from an integrated production / consumption to a dominant consumption approach.
(2)
We explain further. At the beginning (6000 BCE) of the writing system, we see that the competency or skill of writing and reading was closely linked. Writing, whether it be with pin into the clay or the slate-pencil on a slate, or with a stylus on the wax tablet or with ink on parchment, paper, etc., required a major effort to master the skill… But learning to write required the knowing of reading and vice versa. Both skills were and are interdependent, even if there are some possible discrepancies.
It is possible that one can read well without being able to write correctly and to some extent reversely.
(3)
With the art of printing and computer, we see that both reading and writing skills have begun to grow more and more apart.
(4)
The last 20 years the discrepancy between both the writing and the reading skills has become stronger. After all, computer use is a matter of pushing in buttons.
With the development of i-phones, smart phones and i-pads, etc., we see that even this push-button system is gradually replaced by a "sweep" system, in which the skill of "sweeping" with the finger on a screen is crucial to choose one’s documents, to manipulate... This means that the distance between writing and learning is becoming even much larger.
(5)
An intermediate stage between the stylus and the push-button culture was the Meccano phase. In this phase we see that the control of elements, processes, documents is done by turning movements. However, we see that this Meccano phase was followed very quickly by the push-button phase.
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