Maria D. Avgerinou's "Re-Viewing Visual Literacy in the "Brain d' Images" Era" emphasizes the importance of visual literacy in modern day and aims to persuade the reader that formal VL training would be greatly beneficial to education and everyday life.
I agree that visual literacy has always tended to take a back seat in the formal education guidelines. This applies especially to general classes. I also agree that education needs to be reworked to accommodate the rapidly changing digitally run world that we live in today. I would not go as far to say that there is a visual literacy crisis as in no one knows how to process or communicate visual information. I believe that many people practice visual literacy on their own time. For example, those who analyze television shows are practicing visual literacy. And in education visuals are always very important to learning.
I thought that the brief exploration of the information-age mindset was very interesting. I agree with the points listed in the reading, but I also think they missed one of the most crucial characteristics of the information-age: Impatience for results. The world is speeding up with the digital era. People have been conditioned to consume one-minute videos (tiktok, reels, shorts) that contain an entire story, and show impatience and frustration when things are drawn out or left unresolved. The effects of this can be seen in life. For example, American TV has gone from shows that are 20-22 episodes per season to 8-9 episodes per season. People want conclusions and they want them quickly. There is no room for suspense, theorizing, and excitement. Another byproduct of the world’s current impatience is binge culture. In the past, television episodes would be drawn out. Typically, every week, one episode would air for a show. Nowadays, full shows are released all at once to be consumed in one sitting. In binging, people cannot absorb and process the media they just consumed including the good and the bad about it. They will miss an insane amount of details and move on very quickly from it. This is not how visual media should be consumed and it is among the reasons visual literacy should be taught so people learn to take their time processing information and images they see or watch.
In conclusion, I believe that visual literacy is very important, and I do believe it is a skill being lost to the rushed oversaturation of social media and information.
Comments