Abstract: This author agrees with Tom Pettit's definition of the Gutenberg Parenthesis and that we are entering an age of depreciated acceptance of text based media as the primary source of knowledge acquisition. These times are also placing pressure on the meaning of intellectual property. These new views are an indicator of the new 'digital divide' in which students learn in much different ways than teachers are teaching, causing new challenges for teachers to motivate reluctant learners. This paper presents findings from a series of studies in which the use of story and digital media has had positive effects on motivation and outcomes of today’s media centric and text-averse reluctant learners.