Pulling together a vast range of knowledge and sources, Tofts weaves together many disparate theories and thinkers in an effort to map the shifting geography of virtual influence. Through a study of the major theorists, Tofts ultimately defines cyberculture as a new mode of human interaction with technology. He traces its genealogy through communication and information systems, examining how they have evolved over time. Drawing on conceptual models as diverse as Plato's cave, Yates's Art of Memory , Freud's mystic writing pad, Derrida's grammatology, Haraway's cyborg and Kristeva's semiotic chora, Tofts constructs a history of mnemonic technologies and systems. In essence what Tofts gives us is a history of the science of memory and how technologies affect not just how and what is remembered in different historical periods but how memory and its storage is context-sensitive.
Literacy is also integral to memory being one of the earliest information storage systems.
Oral cultures practiced an entirely different kind of memory work and writing was born of the need to extend the capacities of the human mind for remembering. This was initially represented by inventories and lists. This suggests a contextual continuity from Socrates through to cyberpunk literature. Poststructuralist thought upended the Classical tradition of speech as the superior and originary mode of communication, and instead Jacques Derrida controversially argues that writing precedes speech in a literate culture. In fact, he proclaims writing the fundamental building block of cybernetics and believes that the blending of human and machine in this field is the result of the principle of writing.