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Rip van Winkle despierta en el siglo XXI, desconcertado completamente por lo que ve. Los hombres y las mujeres a su alrededor hablan con dispositivos pequeños de metal fijados a sus oídos. La gente joven se sienta en sus casas en los sofás, jugando con atletas en miniatura alrededor en las pantallas electrónicas. Aeropuertos, hospitales, alamedas de compras - cada lugar al que va lo impresiona. Pero cuando finalmente camina en un aula, el viejo hombre sabe exactamente donde está. “Esto es una escuela”, declara. “Teníamos de estas en 1906. Solo que las pizarras ahora son verdes”.

The key word here is "empowerment." Technologies allow us to overcome limitations of time, distance, and physical capability, but they only empower us when they can be gracefully used by large, productive segments of our society. The telephone was empowering when we all finally got it. Now it is the Internet and digital communications.

Each new technology is difficult for the older generation and easy for the younger, which explains why I am a PC master but a texting idiot. I'm just too damned old.

But whatever our digital future brings, we need to overcome the perils of dualistic thinking, the notion that what lies ahead is either a utopia or a dystopia. If we're going to make sense of what's happening with literacy in our culture, we need to be able to triangulate: to bear in mind our needs and desires, the media as they once were and currently are, and the media as they're continually transforming.

But whatever our digital future brings, we need to overcome the perils of dualistic thinking, the notion that what lies ahead is either a utopia or a dystopia. If we're going to make sense of what's happening with literacy in our culture, we need to be able to triangulate: to bear in mind our needs and desires, the media as they once were and currently are, and the media as they're continually transforming.