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What is the worth of words?
Kinda old, but: What is the Worth of Words?
It’s time to acknowledge that in a truly multimedia environment of 2025, most Americans don’t need to understand more than a hundred or so words at a time... Young people today, however, have plenty of literacy for everyday activities such as reading signs and package labels, and writing brief e-mails and text messages that don’t require accurate spelling or grammar... In 2025, higher-level literacy is probably necessary for only 10 percent of the American population.
While the author may have a point about the changing educational requirements of modern society, I question his central thesis that higher tech = less reading. I've certainly been employed in jobs where anything more than basic literacy was not required, but then again, these where low-tech, manual labour jobs - the very sort of jobs that technology tends to replace. Of course, I guess you could argue that the people running the technology don't need to be able to read either - until something breaks. Eventually, someone will have to RTFM. This assumes, of course, that the people designing the system were capable of writing one in a coherent manner. (Ok, he did say that some people will have to be able to read properly - I'm just dubious that he regards only 10% of the population as employed in jobs which require any sort of 'abstract communication' or 'organising and planning large enterprises'.)
I'd certainly hate to see the reaction of my boss to the statement that 'writing brief e-mails and text messages don't require accurate spelling and grammar'. And I can't wait for him to start communicating with me via pictures and text messages...
Anyway, I can (kind of) understand, if not agree with the majority of his arguments, although I think they are biased by a tech-centric view which regards other skills are inferior and ultimately unnecessary. Until I got to this:
The nation’s leaders must be able to read; for those who follow, the ability should be strictly optional.
Does this sound like an incredibly bad idea to anyone else? A highly educated 'ruling class' and an a semi-illiterate population? Cause that's always worked out so well...
Or this entire thing could be some kind of weird joke, and I'm just to tired to get it. *yawn*
It’s time to acknowledge that in a truly multimedia environment of 2025, most Americans don’t need to understand more than a hundred or so words at a time... Young people today, however, have plenty of literacy for everyday activities such as reading signs and package labels, and writing brief e-mails and text messages that don’t require accurate spelling or grammar... In 2025, higher-level literacy is probably necessary for only 10 percent of the American population.
While the author may have a point about the changing educational requirements of modern society, I question his central thesis that higher tech = less reading. I've certainly been employed in jobs where anything more than basic literacy was not required, but then again, these where low-tech, manual labour jobs - the very sort of jobs that technology tends to replace. Of course, I guess you could argue that the people running the technology don't need to be able to read either - until something breaks. Eventually, someone will have to RTFM. This assumes, of course, that the people designing the system were capable of writing one in a coherent manner. (Ok, he did say that some people will have to be able to read properly - I'm just dubious that he regards only 10% of the population as employed in jobs which require any sort of 'abstract communication' or 'organising and planning large enterprises'.)
I'd certainly hate to see the reaction of my boss to the statement that 'writing brief e-mails and text messages don't require accurate spelling and grammar'. And I can't wait for him to start communicating with me via pictures and text messages...
Anyway, I can (kind of) understand, if not agree with the majority of his arguments, although I think they are biased by a tech-centric view which regards other skills are inferior and ultimately unnecessary. Until I got to this:
The nation’s leaders must be able to read; for those who follow, the ability should be strictly optional.
Does this sound like an incredibly bad idea to anyone else? A highly educated 'ruling class' and an a semi-illiterate population? Cause that's always worked out so well...
Or this entire thing could be some kind of weird joke, and I'm just to tired to get it. *yawn*
no subject
Yeah, a lot like civilization.
The nation’s leaders must be able to read; for those who follow, the ability should be strictly optional.
No cookies for them. Also, I am having strange flashbacks to eighth grade history and the Protestant Reformation and printing presses. Why, brain, why?
I was unsure when reading the article if it was supposed to be some kind of, "Look, this is the way people could think in 2025! The horror!" sort of piece, or if it was actually saying what I thought it was saying. But I just woke up, and am also tired.
In all, I find the thesis idiotic. As you pointed out, the jobs requiring the least amount of literacy, in my experience, are exactly the ones that technology will replace. And this
We have made at least two generations of American children miserable trying to teach them a skill that only a small percentage of them really need. And we have wasted billions of dollars that might well have gone for more practical education and training.
and the earlier bit about correcting reading disabilities made me angry. Maybe (though I don't buy it) kids won't need advanced reading comprehension skills in 2025, but where the hell does the author get off saying that we should let kids with reading disabilities founder helplessly in a highly textual education system? Oh yeah, waste of billions of dollars, making their lives not miserable. (I have little cousins who've struggled with dyslexia and dysgraphia, so I'm a bit sensitive here, but still). And, if our school system is at all aiming to prepare students for university, it damn well better teach them to read. I doubt that will change in less than twenty years.
But yeah, the educated elite/illiterate masses in subjugation thing took the cake.
no subject
Which was obviously such a bad idea. Quick, Back to the Dark Ages!
I was unsure when reading the article if it was supposed to be some kind of, "Look, this is the way people could think in 2025! The horror!" sort of piece, or if it was actually saying what I thought it was saying.
I think it was saying what it said, unfortunately. Perhaps because they think subtext is too complicated.
And about the reading disabilities - word. What, because they have reading disabilities, they should be automatically barred from his literate upper class?