MediaSlap blog

The printing press existed some 800 years in China prior to it’s European debut in the 1400’s but it did not have the same effect on people of the east and west. The Chinese language is written in pictographs and not in the same linear fashion as in the west. For example the single character to the left represents “woman”.  Western writing on the other hand is made up of individual letters that are formed into words. With just 26 letters in the alphabet it’s possible arrange them in many combinations in order to create any word. In Chinese, one word or thought must be represented by a single character and this results in a huge number of characters.

Johannes Gutenberg invented the western printing press by creating a new use for a wine press. Prior to the press and the printed word, history was passed on in the form of stories verbally or written down with pen. Printing made writing repeatable and uniform. The printed word affected learning for the entire western world. The printing press was the first assembly line and also made possible the industrial revolution. The invention of the printing press led to a restructure of our imaginations – our very way of thinking and even our beliefs. It formed conditions that led to how linear thinking is entrenched in western thought.

Linear reasoning and belief through reason and fact – was a result of the printing press.  Printing makes us prefer cognitive processing of ideas in a linear fashion while at the same time diminishes imagination, intuition and emotion. It can even make us suspicious or fearful of feelings if they run contrary to “logical” reasoning found in the printed word.

ON May 24, 1844 the first electric communication was sent between Baltimore and Washington DC by Samuel Morse – the famous message was “What hath God wrought?” and the telegraph was born. Prior to the telegraph, most information was shared in books but with the telegraph information was a commodity whose price was determined by how big the message was and how far it traveled. This led to shorter pieces of information or the modern news story. We marvel at the internet and TV but these are simply an extension of the telegraph. Today’s news stories are seemingly random non-associated pieces of information resulting in a mosaic of facts thrown at us at the speed of light.

This post was inspired from the book “ Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith” by Shane Hipps

… to be continued

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