The philosopher was upset about the invention of the alphabet, an information technology we take very much for granted. No, these are the words of Socrates, as written by his pupil Plato in about 360 B.C.E.
The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality (Plato, 1999). This discovery will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories they will trust to the external object and not remember of themselves.
Consider the following complaint – is the speaker ranting against calculators in math class? Against television? PDAs? Google? Tools of human communication are often regarded with apprehension or even fear.
