"...being 'literate' in the digital age is not about reading and writing but about solving problems using simulations..."

This was a real stop-and-think idea for me. One of my first thoughts was an analogy: maybe reading-and-writing are to the digital world as speaking-and-hearing were to the written world (to invent a term).

What I mean is that no matter how great a computer or network you have, reading and writing at some level are prerequisite skills. They won't get you to optimum performance, but if you can't read or write, much potential experience in the digital world's going to pass you by.

(I'm not ignoring the possibilities of experiences created specifically for people who can't read or write; I'm just focusing on the developed-world norm.)

The other half of the relationship: when literacy (reading and writing) began to expand (e.g., within the first 50 years after moveable type; again after the establishment of widespread schooling), your success in learning to read and write depended to some extent on your being able to talk (and make sense with what you said) and to listen (and make sense out of what you heard).

I could do a whole other comment on "learning to use the computer to do things that neither you nor it could do alone." I couldn't agree more. I've often talked about "reaching through the software," meaning enabling someone to accomplish something without having to think much about the application enabling that accomplishment.