The Evolution of Writing

I've done more than my fair share of reading about cognitive psychology and the effect new media has on the creation and transmission of messages. However, this article makes almost no sense to me. I get that the medium one uses to convey a message affects the message itself. I've read about that in Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky. Shirky conveys concepts that are equally as complex as those presented in "The Evolution of Writing" but he finds a way to break such concepts down so that they are understandable to the reader. "The Evolution of Writing" doesn't. While I think I understand the basic premise of this article, I'm aware that I could be completely off the mark. This article was, for me, about as captivating as reading the phone book.