Awhile ago I heard the term “functioning illiteracy.” Since then, I have paid attention to the writing and reading comprehension of the people around me. Until I took my current job, I never realized how horribly deficient these skills are in the country. I have been blessed with an intelligent family and husband. We are not necessarily the most educated bunch. Neither my husband nor I have a college degree. But we can communicate in writing. I have realized this is fairly unusual–and it scares the crap out of me.
I’m not talking about literary writing skills here. I’m talking about being a able to form a comprehensive sentence. I’m certainly not one of those hoity toity people who looks down on people who only use words with three syllables or less. I don’t use fancy words in my writing–I don’t honestly know that many, and I want my readers to enjoy my stories, not get a vocabulary lesson.
In my job, I deal with the public much, mostly questions about the memberships and services the company I work for offers. Most of this communication is in writing. I’ve seen everything–entire pages of writing with only one period at the very end; misspelled everything, so bad that I had to call the person to make sure I understood what they wanted; sentences that make no sense, no matter how many times I read them. Sometimes it seems as though the person was just too lazy to go back and check what they’ve written–that’s a whole other problem that I won’t go into. Much of the time, though, I can see the person just has no idea how to form thoughts onto a page.
My fear is what in the world is going to happen to this world if we lose the ability to communicate effectively in writing? Not only will literature cease to be produced–or heck, even just comic books. All the writing we have available to us, the works that have come before us, will lose potency. We will stop learning from the great minds that came before.
I don’t think it’s that we will stop being able to read at all, hence the title functioning illiteracy. The basics are still understood–you know, “see spot run.” But anything more complicated than that seems to be getting lost, slowly. I believe depth of thought is not possible without depth of reading comprehension. We learn from great people that came before then learn how to think for ourselves.
I think part of the problem is our schools. They are not really teaching our kids how to read and write properly. If a child can’t read and write properly, why is he or she passed on to the next grate level?
I completely agree. I met a college graduate a few years ago who did not know how to spell college.
I believe you mean “c 3:] RS”. (yes – I googled how to spell “see spot run” in text.) Text language is the downfall of our society! I use “!!!” to show how much I hate (not h8) text speak! It’s acutally like a completely different language – where numbers are used in place of a letter and emotions are conveyed through emoticons. There are entire dictionaries (online of course) dedicated to decoding these cryptic messages.
My friend texted, wrud? I had no idea what she was saying. I thought she just must have had an seizure and she was randomly pressing buttons to get help. Evidently, she just wanted to know “what are you doing?”
How is that quicker? I had to ask her what she was saying, then she had to type the whole thing out, and then I answered her. If she had just texted, what are you doing, it would only have taken another 3 and a 1/2 seconds.
So between schools not caring like they should for our children’s education – to text language – I’m sure in 10 years when the little 14 year olds are out of college (assuming they go) and in the real world – they will have no idea how to write a complete sentence.
I also think shortening the written language into a letter and a number is just added proof that American’s are out for instant gratification – and so many people have ADD and ADHD. Because they can’t even sit still long enough to write complete sentence!
And don’t even get me started on Twitter!!! All I have to say is, I don’t care about every thought in your head or how many times you go potty in a day. Facebook is fine – as long as you post actual things that somewhat matter to people. Like, insomnia, reminiscing about mario brother’s on the old nintendo, or what your child did that day that was too cute not to share….I don’t need a written log of your entire day and thought processes.
I somewhat agree with what you have posted, but I believe that all teaching begins in the home. As Shonda wrote, the schools aren’t teaching our children, but if their best interest is our best interest, then we as parents, will make sure they are prepared for life by teaching them ourselves.
As for text messaging, it’s the evolution of communication. Just as typing has almost entirely replaced handwriting, which itself has evolved over hundreds, if not thousands of years, communication will continue to change; not always as we would wish.
The great thing about Facebook is not whether we are interested in another person’s day, but that everyone can use their voice, in whatever way they desire. It’s actually a beautiful thing. In the same vein, the reader can pick and choose what it is he or she wishes to consider valuable and read it or not.
We are all continuing to learn and the amount of intelligence we hold at any particular moment in time, greatly depends upon the part of the world in which we stand.
I appreciate your thoughts.
Rondi
Many valid points on both sides of the coin. Very thought provoking.