This article discusses the development of the concept of literacy in the context of IC technologies and English language teaching stressing the idea that literacy is no longer a stable concept which was always connected with the basic skills of reading and writing. The rapid developments of today have been changing, affecting and modifying this concept in such a way that it is difficult to say what it exactly means. Throughout the article the author traces the political, historical, social and cultural factors that have been influencing the development of this concept, with special focus on ICT's and how the continuous developments occurring to them gave birth to new literacies as a quite new concept that has come to the fore to mean different things to different people. The article proceeds to tackle the question, "who is to be considered literate?" stressing the idea that literate individuals nowadays know many things and master many skills other than the foundational abilities of reading, writing and calculating. It proceeds to compare between the new concept of literacy and the traditional one trying to answer an important question: "why is it essential to assimilate a new concept of literacy?"