The more things change....

We all grew up with telephones, we later learned computers, and now the two in tandem bring us the Internet.

But the history of today's technology has roots much further back than you might think. You have to progress all the way to page 500 of the massive "The History and Power of Writing" by Henry-Jean Martin to find out how graphic expression by the earliest humans, early writing scripts and papers, ancient storytellers, royal libraries, the emerging literary establishment, then journalists contributed in their own ways to today's Internet culture.

Even a concept as simple as creating an index by putting topics in alphabetical order had to be "invented." (It was Papias, working in Italy, who in the 11th century first compiled and arranged an encyclopedia of sorts in alphabetical order.)

The development of language and writing, told in precise detail in this book (The University of Chicago Press, 1994) puts today's online communication in the same historical continuum. It's the big picture - really big picture - of communication for commerce, passing along culture and tradition, connecting with a wider society, getting in touch with a higher purpose, and helping (or forcing) people to conform. Communication technology today is the computer; in yesteryear it was any writing tool.

Written language did not suddenly arise, of course, as a complete system understood by all. Humanity had to make it to the Latin period to get periods - or more precisely, points. St. Jerome is credited with developing the system of punctuation. Apparently, this was the first attempt to break up text into phrases that contained a complete idea that people could grasp at a glance. His goal? To make it easier for friars to read sacred text. But it's clear that these earlier communicators had goals similar to those of us trying to make information easier to grasp at a glance on the screen.

Gradual change

According to Martin, the appearance of writing coincided with tribes or clans merging into a larger whole. "This in turn led t o a break with the past, a redistribution of tasks, and eventually the rise of new forms of logic. The radical changes set in motion in this manner were felt only gradually, however." Today, societies are merging into a global economy, and we can anticipate the outcome by looking at how past communication changes gradually affected people.

Laws, for example, became distinct from custom. New dominant groups appeared. Bureaucracy of a different form developed. Discourse was permanently fixed, prompting new reasoning processes. Oral tradition's strength of adapting to the hearer was lost. In fact, Charlemagne issued a proclamation in 787 A.D. affirming that the written law was superior to oral custom.

But there remained millions of people who thought traditionally, out of sync with the thousands who saw the world in a new way.

Getting people to use the latest technology can be encouraged by certain thinkers and visionaries, history shows, but they face changing an ingrained culture. That's what happened in the 16th century when the proliferation of printing led to the need to codify spelling and grammar rules. People were used to overloading words with unnecessary letters, not to mention the different ways words were pronounced. Efforts to change customs and traditions splintered authors, primers and academics. It took literally centuries to fix the final rules in printed texts. Anyone who has drawn up corporate stylebooks or web guidelines can identify.

What's displaced?

Martin writes: "The appearance of a new communication technique hardly ever eliminates the ones that preceded it. The new technique simply imposes a new distribution of labor in the overall system that conditions the way people on the various levels of a society think." While we may assume that truism relates to the television failing to eliminate the radio, the Internet failing to eliminate the book, or even chat failing to eliminate the telephone, Martin actually makes this statement in reference to people learning to read and write. Those who proposed universal education were revolutionaries in their time. "The shift to a written culture always resulted from a desire or a willingness to break down the barriers of a compartmentalized society and a will to join a larger community."

And if breaking down barriers isn't radical enough, Martin contends that people who learned to read and write also became logical thinkers. This communication opened their minds and gave them the ability to think abstractly and adopt a new view of self. The process of learning a different communication method literally changed the way society thought.

But in the end, Martin agrees that it's the computer and predecessor data-processing machines that are most profoundly changing society. He predicts challenges to law, custom, behavior patterns, beliefs, and cultures.

The more things change...

the more things stay the same?

* In ancient Greece, the size of written characters depended on how much the scribe was paid.

* Paragraphs appeared in the 16th century, eventually recognized as a major tool in more effective page layout.

* In the early days of the printing press in Europe, compositors and printers worked as a team, because each worker needed the skills to do whatever was most urgent, switching from one task to another. The workload was somewhat seasonal, and when work went away, personnel were let go. In fact, temporary staff handled much of the work.

* Just before World War I, 90 percent of all the books sold in the United States were sold by mail - not in bookstores. Will the Internet make bookstores a blip in history?

* Someday history students may look back in amazement at the concept of a computer sitting on a desktop with a keyboard best known for causing carpal tunnel syndrome. It takes time to get the ergonomics right. As evidence: Not until the 13th century was a desk a common place for calligraphers to illuminate manuscripts. Before that, copyists complained that writing tired the entire body.

* By the 14th century in Europe, there was a clear separation between the written text and the writing process. This allowed for the development of publishers. The author could remain invisible.

* While techniques for creating multiple copies of texts were developed first in Korea, it was the movable type invented in Europe that spread worldwide - and imposed European logic on the entire world, according to Martin. Being first with a technology didn't guarantee dominance then, nor does it now. But whoever corners the market dictates the way people who use the technology think and act.

* Early societies could not separate written word from spoken word. All reading was done aloud or at least by moving one's lips. For a school teacher to tell a student to "read silently" would have been incomprehensible.

* Not until the 12th century did each word appear as a separate entity when written. Not until the 14th and 15th centuries were narratives divided into chapters providing natural breaks in the reading.

* Newsletters and newspapers at their origin looked much different from the way they do now. The reason, Martin writes, is that "the model of the book was so strong that the intention of both the editors and readers of such periodicals that they would be gathered together and bound as permanent volumes." In the early years of any new technology, people can't quite grasp what it might be, looking instead at how it streamlines what currently exists. The sociological changes take a while to become apparent.

Sheri Rosen, ABC, is director of organizational communication at USAA, a financial services company in San Antonio, Texas. She invites your online thoughts on digital experiences at [e-mail].