The conclusion of the Eisenstein excerpt states her goal to untie the period of history that had previously been "dealt with" and reveal the unexplained complexities within the "Gutenberg period". She probably accomplished this.
The importance of language to human cognition has always seemed important, but recent (since 1960) work has shown that cognition is highly dependent on language. Pre-lingual children don't significantly outperform dogs or primates on cognition tests - but as soon as language starts developing, they leave their competition in the dust. Children kept from developing language seem to have drastically limited reasoning ability. Given this importance, it seems obvious that the spread of literacy, and the spread of available reading material, had a significant effect on human thought; to the degree to which thought depends on language, the form of thought depends on the form of language. Beyond the direct importance of this relationship, the significance of editing (as eluded to by Eisenstein) takes on new importance.
In comparison to the digital revolution, however, the importance of the printing revolution would seem to be greater. The conversion of the masses to literacy probably changed their thinking in many important ways; but the digital revolution, as important as it is, doesn't involve a change in form of thought; it's not another form of language, just another form of dissemination and interrelation.
Mike, I think you are right to point out that the digital revolution is not as radical as the print revolution insofar as the latter contributed to literacy and education on a much larger scale (and also in that digital tools rely heavily on print techniques and habits). That said, I think we would have to be a bit more precise about what's included in "language" (for instance, oral versus written or typographical), and also ponder the quantitative leaps enabled by digital technology (and whether or not that leads to a qualitative shift that is equally radical, in its own way).
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