The Loss of Literacy in Modern America

[Mortal Apparition]

So is peer validation to blame?  

[Ruzique]

Hm....I think I blame the amount of stereotypical music, and influences that rain upon the average youth.  

[Tamsyn Marvene Riddle]

-No Artificial Flavoring-

Hello... popping in to put my veiw in the conversation...

I think the loss of literacy is pretty much a mix of everything mentioned. But, I have one more thing to point out. I live in Philly, where people say, "wooder, y'all, 'sup?, tight," and, one that annoys me the most, leave out the verb when saying, "You are (insert adjective here.)" It turns into something like... "you stupid!"

After observing all of these dialects, I've come to a conclusion that, things all start off with one person. For example: let's say one person has come to America from another country, and, with English as his or her second language, says things like, "You happy?" etc. He meets someone, and they talk, this someone being completely literate. They hear the way this person speaks, and, thinking it sounds nice, starts saying, "You happy?" instead of, "Are you happy?" Now, the person from the different country hears the American saying this, and, thinks for sure it's proper English, so, he or she never realizes how badly they are pronouncing or saying things. Not that it's their fault at all.

No, the fault falls on the American, who, spreads his words around. Things start to mold around this speech, and, voila! You have a grammatically challenged country.

Although, everything else you people have said is true as well.

That makes so much sense. Also another thing is that Americans have added so many words into normal English that it is hard to tell what should be there (I am talking about all those 'like's and 'you know's). Quite a few people I know correct me for not using them. Also teachers don't correct that, they should but they don't.  

[Mundi Rosa]

My two cents, which may or may not coincide with others.

Americans are lazy. Why bother with doing something the hard way, and in such a way so as to take an excess of time, when you can more easily forget to spell check, and use acronyms? Of course, sometimes the acronym can be useful-who wants to type *laughss out loud* repeatedly when lol is easier, faster, and the other person understands you anyways? After all, isn't the American Dream that of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Not wasting time makes me happy, doesn't it make you happy?

Or so goes the presumed psyche of the population today. Personally, I've had the semi-unique experience in which 'coolness' was tied to correct spelling and grammar. Since I'd look like an idiot to type badly in front of my peers, I abstained.

This might lead you to believe that it's peer pressure that leads us down the path of bad speaking skills. I'm not so sure. When I'm around people other than those aforementioned, I find that I subconciously 'dumb down' my speeking to match those others, possibly to not look like an elitist in their eyes. Could it be not a desire to be 'cool,' but rather an empathy, abiet twisted, that leads us towards speaking incorrectly?

Just a few thoughts!  

[bakuretsuai]

I stand on the whole 'laziness' factor one hundred percent. One of my closest friends has developed a completely original language verging on leet due to being lazy. The sad part is that I and quite a few others understand it without much difficulty. If people are committed enough to the concept of getting away with shoddy typing, they will.  

[Venat the Undying]

DarkElf27

*Laughs.* Yeah, I've been on gaia for a year and a half, that helped raise my typing speed considerably. And my junior and senior year.... Hell, I'd be looking towards the future; I'm a sophomore. sweatdrop Try not to judge me by age, though.

I'm going INTO my freshmen year, so I won't xp .
And I type 60 words per minute on an extremely good day.  

[Silverkleptofox]

All the free texting that cell phone companies are ofering now isn't helping.  

[Zealot of Insanity]

I say again, it's not laziness. It's so much easier to type normally than it is to type in text talk.  

[SonarP]

But we have some people in this guild who are lazy and do just fine. :/  

[TneeLilSupaGuy]

Yami no Hitokiri

It seems to me that job requirements are already quite stiff. Even a carpentry place takes those with a college degree over those with only a high school diploma. What the hell for? Why does one need a college degree to learn how to work with wood and tools?!

I myself tend to blame peer validation. Parents set their young child in front of a computer. The young child inevitably meets up with other young children, or older teenagers online. Thanks to the shitty public school systems, many kids can't spell worth s**t nowadays. Therefore these younger children are exposed to the stupidity and illiteracy of the older ones.

Or you might have a teen who's a very accurate speller but who wants to fit in when he chats online or on message boards, so he purposely uses "txt tlk" when he chats. I was guilty of this myself. I felt like everyone else was doing it, so why shouldn't I do it to fit in? I only stopped when I realized that I was making an a** of myself.

Well, that's my take on it.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, but I think that several things factor into it. Today's youth (I hate that I am old enough to use that term) get ahead by how well they are accepted by their peers. Yes, fitting in has always been an issue. However, it seems that today there is more focus on it. Anyone can be on television these days. Anyone can be an internet celebrity. Anyone can be a pop star. All it takes is enough of the right people accepting you. With the internet, there is instant access to mass exposure. When everyone online is using things like n00b and 1337, it only makes sense to use them yourself in an attempt to get ahead.

I blame television for causing everyone to expect their fifteen minutes. I blame laziness for the initial decline of literacy as a shortcut to popularity and/or "fame". Computers are to blame for fueling the laziness fire. I don't really think it is an issue of bad genetics really. At the end of the day, I feel that if it were not for peer validation compounded with the above mentioned issues, the problem would have not gone on as long as it has.  

[toachung]

Yami no Hitokiri

What has prompted the loss of literacy in modern America? Is it the mass media, laziness, ineptitude, stupidity? Are generation after generation of people indeed becoming stupider than their ancestors through the passing on of defective genes? Is television to blame for luring children to its blue glare and away from books? Will the average American even be able to read above a sixth grade level in 30 years?

Thoughts, opinions?

Note: In the poll, I do leave out the apostrophe. I have to because the poll won't go through with apostrophes in the answers. Thanks for another brilliant glitch, Gaia!

1) Thank you for the other bracket.

2) I think that the source of all word problems starts with, to quote the poll, "Peer validation." It always starts with one person thinking it's cool, then in order for to fit in, another person copies it, and so on and so forth. It happens all the time and, frankly, I'm tired of it. People need to learn to go their own way.

You are free to disagree. wink  

[Winter Nightroad]

Yami no Hitokiri

It seems to me that job requirements are already quite stiff. Even a carpentry place takes those with a college degree over those with only a high school diploma. What the hell for? Why does one need a college degree to learn how to work with wood and tools?!

I myself tend to blame peer validation. Parents set their young child in front of a computer. The young child inevitably meets up with other young children, or older teenagers online. Thanks to the shitty public school systems, many kids can't spell worth s**t nowadays. Therefore these younger children are exposed to the stupidity and illiteracy of the older ones.

Or you might have a teen who's a very accurate speller but who wants to fit in when he chats online or on message boards, so he purposely uses "txt tlk" when he chats. I was guilty of this myself. I felt like everyone else was doing it, so why shouldn't I do it to fit in? I only stopped when I realized that I was making an a** of myself.

Well, that's my take on it.

That's a good way to put it. I went to a crappy high school, and the only class I liked was my senior english class because my teacher stressed the importance of proper spelling and grammar. He was the only teacher I really learned lessons I could use.

But it is really sad how people just don't care about spelling or grammar any more online, and not just online. I live in an area where you hear people saying stuff like:

"What up doe" and "I be going to the store wit my homies yo"

And hearing that type of speech makes me cringe...man I can't stand it!

I blame lack of caring on the problem. These people don't seem to mind that they are using poor grammar. It's a problem these days that just doesn't want to go away.  

[nimuemelpomene]

Along those lines... here's something I blogged the other day:


Several thoughts on the future of the written word:

Our society is becoming less and less likely to turn to reading to gather information. For example, on the internet, the prevalence of video news clips online as well as Youtube and video blogs seems to indicate a growing trend in audio/visual format versus text information sharing. Yes, it’s faster, but I fear it also caters to those who choose or prefer to get their information in 3 minute sound bytes rather than in depth observations.

Admittedly, the new video learning systems (especially with school and such) have been a boon to students, making it easier to learn, especially for people with learning disabilities who may have had severe difficulties reading from texts. However, I find that for those who have no difficulty reading it seems to make for laziness, or at least apathy, when it comes to learning.

It is making everyone a generalist but maybe not in a good way. I wonder if in twenty years if the following societal changes will occur:

- Simplified English will be used (no big words that one has to look up, it’d take too much time). I’m guessing that there won’t be as many synonyms for words as well as non-specialized language to make things easier to parse in a shorter amount of time.

- Classical textbooks will change (the coming generations won’t have the patience or the training to read for more than fifteen minutes, especially when the information can be compressed into video format). I suspect this might take longer due to the fact that the school system always seems to be about 20 years behind the curve as it is now.

- Non-television advertisements will be in video form (this is already happening, many advertisements and pop-ups online are animated and even billboards are beginning to do this with increasing frequency). This makes me wonder just quickly we will completely develop the ability to ignore moving, flashing advertisements, and what this will do to our vision. Flashy, moving advertisements catch our attention because they’re moving. Therefore, I wonder if we will develop selective sight in the same way we develop selective hearing (e.g. how we can sleep with all the noises around us).

- I don’t think I even need to point out how television and movies are supplanting books. However one side effect of this that has been recently mentioned by other people (Cory Doctorow, for one) is that magazines and such will increasingly lose their revenue. Short stories are already struggling as it is, with a current trend toward e-zines trying to re-capture the audience that they lost.

- Finally it seems to me as if people will be less challenged to think for themselves, if only because of the innate nature of each format. With reading, one is forced to parse the words and think about them in order to get anything out of the activity. However, television and video media merely tells you what you need to think about, rather than forcing you to figure it out for yourself. In other words, with reading you need to think, with video formats, you don’t. I can make all the analogies to brain atrophy that there are, but the point remains the same, we won’t be challenging ourselves as much and thinking for without the aid of a flashing screen directing our thoughts.

All that said, then, it seems to me as if the future is pretty grim. At least for us ready and writey-types. That is, unless we want to write scripts for toothpaste advertisements.  

[XVNekioVX]

Touch Type Test

I can get around 70 on that and I use to type much, much faster. After I had the stroke, they were worried if I'd even know how to type. I knew how to do it, just got a bit slower. The lack of intelligence is proof that our species is going down as a whole.
Personally, I think it's laziness with the other things added in a bit.  

[Malak al-Maut]

I, for one, have never understood how it's easier to type in chatspeek as opposed to typing in ordinary words. And yes, I spelled chatspeek with two e's.

I blame genetics.