A lecture was organized by “Pakin” Literary Magazine on October 10, 2012 at 7:00 PM. Seta Krikorian, the associate editor of “Pakin,” welcomed the audience and presented the topic: “Written, oral, Gutenberg, digitalized word and book, languages, culture, and Internet.” After introducing the lecturers, Ms. Krikorian invited Hagop Balian, the first speaker and the editor-in-chief of ‘Pakin,” to speak.
At the beginning of his speech Hagop Balian presented and appreciated the benefits of the Internet in the sense of the intellectual communication it provides its users. “However, here we face serious issues and should counteract them, since great scientists are worried about them, as well,” Mr. Balian emphasized, while grounding his views on citations from Ezovbos and Socrates. Deepening his thoughts, Hagop Balian talked about the book, “Proust and the squid” by the scholar Maryanne Wolf, where the author writes with concern about the negative impacts of the Internet, especially on reading. “We are not born to read,” Wolf concludes. Mr. Balian also cited the hypothesis of another scholar, Noam Chomsky, who talks about genetics, as well as preserving the legacy of the past, registering it, and passing it forward. “The concerns of Socrates are highly relevant for today,” Balian said, adding that in the 5th century AD Socrates was opposed to the book and the written word, however society could not turn back. “Today the internet is a reality,” emphasized Balian and added: “This is completely linked to educational issues. In our case, there is a danger of losing the language. Also, we should prepare generations who are not the slaves of the ready-at-hand. Leaders should be concerned the issues of with this issue and be ready to invest. All these need management and leadership. This is up to the press, the educational sector, and the RA Ministry of Education. The use of computers and Internet should be well organized. There is a whole way of thinking, against which we should work. For example, we should work against writing Armenian with Latin letters on the Internet. In other words, all these need organization, investment, and management,” Mr. Balian said.
Afterwards, Maral Antoyian, the executive manager of the Educational Council of the Armenian Prelacy in Lebanon, talked about a computer program initiated by the Prelacy for the Armenian schools. “This program should be included in the curriculum of this current scholastic year and will cover the topic of Armenian history,” Ms. Antoyian said, expressing her satisfaction with the results of this program. “With this program we will encourage the students to acquire computer skills and look for information on the Internet and be able to use them for their studies,” Ms. Antoyian underlined.
The next speaker was Ardziv Der Khachadourian, a specialist in Computer Sciences and the Internet. He tried to highlight the benefits of computers and the internet, while agreeing with Hagop Balian on the importance of preserving the language. With a look at the legacies of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, Mr. Der Khachadourian discussed the progress of information technologies up to the current digital phase. He said that presently phones and computers are the main factors in human progress and development, and mentioned the possibilities of their positive usage in the Armenian community. He also talked about ways of using the internet profile: “We are on the threshold of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and one of the ways is to support the Armenian cause through the Internet,” he said.
Afterward, the three lecturers replied to the questions asked by the audience.