Why do we read from left to right? (In western cultures, at least)

Umberto Abate 16.02.04

Developed for more than 5000 years, the system of writing can be retained the most important technological tool in representing knowledge. Writing has been based on either ideographic or phonetic alphabets. At the beginning, all the phonetic systems represented only consonants and they were directed from right to left. However, when the Ancient Greeks added vowels to the Phoenician alphabet, they started to invert the direction so writing from left to right. Why? Does this provide a good reason for stating that technology deeply affects cognition?
Three main issues will structure this work: firstly it introduces to the chronological development of writing focusing on three key epochs; secondly it highlights the cognitive effects of different systems showing the relationship with the structure of the human brain; finally it argues some of the effects that both the writing system adopted and the cognitive functions consequently required, may have been implied in the developing of the cultural paradigm of western societies.