First came Orality, then Literacy, but what is the now??

"Shown how shifts hitherto labeled as shifts from magic to science, or from the so-called 'prelocical' to the more and more 'rational' state of consciousness, or from Levi-Strauss's 'savage' mind to domesticated thought, can be more economically and cogently explained as shifts from orality to various states of literacy" Ong 29. 
    I know that we were supposed to blog about Ong's one liners but when I read this passage it struck me as inspiration especially when I considered the states of literacy, specifically the state that we are currently in. 
    For the past month, we have been talking about the shift from the Oral Tradition to the Literate Tradition. How we, specifically Americans, have gone from being able to function using only our words to the point where we have to depend almost completely on writing in our daily lives. There has been differing views on whether this shift is having negative or positive impacts on us and more importantly on our future generations. However, the point that I want to very much discuss is the direction that we are now headed. We have left behind the arena of literature for the developing one of  technology. No longer are any of us writing but now we are typing, texting, tweeting, googling, and blogging. One may argue that these are all forms of writing but looking at myself and my peers, I am inclined to disagree. I believe that we are slipping into a sub-culture of literature that is quickly losing its oral and writing traditions. If we lose these traditions, what are we left with? 
    The oral tradition was used to tell stories, pass down traditions, and sustain religions. With the discovery of writing, we then used writing and books to pass down these traditions, keep our religions alive, and to entertain the masses with stories. But now everywhere you look there are iPads, iPods, iPhones, SmartPhones, and the list goes on and on. Through these devices our literary tradition slowly dies because we no longer see the need to use it correctly (Thnx instead of Thanks). We, the English majors of the world, are the rare exception to perpetuating the decline of literary values. The oral tradition is suffering the same fate. It is easier to text someone instead of call or visit. It is easier to email home instead of picking up the phone and calling our parents or making a business call. Even though I am as guilty of doing all these things as the next college student is, I feel as though we are regressing instead of progressing when it comes to our traditions of orality and literacy. The regression that seems to grow more entrenched in our psyche everyday leads me to wonder how my children are going to behave when they become teenagers in about twenty some odd years. Are they even going to have any verbal skills? Will they be able to write a research paper? Will they even know what physical paper is? Some of you may be saying that these questions are ridiculous but what were people saying fifty years ago about computers, if they had even heard of them? They were calling them impractical and an idea of science fiction geeks! I don't write this to make people feel guilty about having their laptop, iPhone, or anything else but to process through my own thoughts on the matter. Is technology really making our lives better? I don't think so, not in the sense of human memory or communication skills, and I am pretty sure that Mnemosyne would agree with me, if she were around! But her prescence decreases everyday with the increase of technology and our refusal to expand our individual memories.