Technology Moves Literacy Backwards

In a still relevant work entitled, "Information Literacy as a Liberal Art:Enlightenment proposals for a new curriculum" Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes make an excellent case for a deeper understanding of what information literacy should be all about. At a key point in their work (IMHO) they state, "This set of circumstances forces us to ask, what do citizens need to know about information and these technologies to "no longer be limited to a mechanical knowledge of the procedures of the arts or of professional routine," so that "they will no longer depend for every trivial piece of business, every insignificant matter of instruction on clever men who rule over them in virtue of their necessary superiority?" - clever men who are likely nowadays to be programmers, systems analysts, network service providers, Webmasters, information industry moguls and directors of academic computing rather than kings and noblemen. " (Read this piece, it is worth it).