Literacy in an Age of Social Media : Why More Is Not Always Better

This paper proposes an approach to literacy that focuses not only on skills and social practices, but first and foremost on the mental capacities and constitution needed in order to cope with a changing information environment. We show that being literate in an age marked by Social Media age encompasses not only locating, accessing, processing and using information appropriately in various settings, it also means being able to mentally cope with the abundance in information. Literacy today is a means to successfully and sustainably participate in society and in conversation, and this paper closes by proposing several streams of research that might inform new measurements for this kind of literacy