Stages of Acceptance in Writing Technologies
| WRITING
|
Accessibility | Functioning | Authentication | |
| Little acceptance | Early Stages (3500 BC to 1000 BC) | Only available to few who had leisure to learn system: accountants, priests, scribes | recordkeeping;
religious uses; artistic uses
became more like speech |
Authority of keepers, location, production |
| Some acceptance | Middle Stage (1000 BC to 1800 AD) | More literacy,
but still only fraction of population
Used in education |
Broader range of
uses, including personal (love letters!)
Still secondary to oral institutions |
Authority of writer as well as institutions |
| Full acceptance | Late (1800 to 2000+) | Wide literacy in
developed world
Basis of education |
All uses; replaces spoken word in most contexts and institutions | Authority of writer, institution, and publication process |
| Pencils | Accessibility | Functioning |
Authentication/
reliability |
|
| Little acceptance | Early Stages (ancient) | limited | limited to
craftspeople
crude but portable |
none |
| Some acceptance | Middle Stage (16-18th cen) | more expanded, but price still high | improved to
become individual tools for inscribing
portability notable |
improved |
| Full acceptance | Late (19th-20th cen) | universally
available as cheaper sources of graphite found and industrial processes
more common
price comes down, found everywhere |
good quality
image; darkness selection
supreme portability |
Established |
| Computer Writing Tools | Accessibility | Functioning |
Authentication/
reliability |
|
| Little acceptance | Early Stages | |||
| Some acceptance | Middle Stage | |||
| Full acceptance | Current |