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cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/1006130
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The original was posted on /r/aboringdystopia by /u/Last_Salad_5080 on 2023-10-03 14:21:04.
It’s really important for folks to understand what is being talked about here, because I run into folks even here that are like “that’s a wall of text, I’m not reading that”. And that’s kind of the behavior that’s being talked about. Like, if you find yourself in “read the headline, not the story” you might be in this group they are talking about in this article that is linked. And do not let me come off high and mighty here, I absolutely have issues with this some times because I get all kinds of caught up with life and do not have enough time to maintain my reading habits. It is a complex issue on why there is this deterioration of reading skills. And I will likely say something to the effect of “Internet BAD!” but do know it is more than just that, it is just that is the easiest go-to for a “short” comment.
So that said. Nice little sample question one would see on a test that would test this is:
It’s not a question of “Can you read the book?” It is a question of, “Did you extract information from the book? Can you connect the dots asked in the question based on the information that you read?” Lots of people who identify themselves as literate have a lot of difficulty doing these kinds of things. So we have to understand that, this is not testing if a kid can read the word “onomatopoeia”, it is testing if a person can extract useful information from written words.
All of that is different from the “eighth grade reading level” where you are typically asked things like “extrapolate what you think the underlying theme the author is trying to present.” Sixth grade reading is mostly being able to put things back in the order that you read them, picking out the descriptive terms that were in the text, and identifying what the entire point was for this particular piece of work, among other things. One does not have to really get creative here, sixth grade reading is just “in slightly finer detail” being able to regurgitate what was just read. Now to get kids ready for higher reading, there is usually questions about “do you think this person at this point was feeling happy?” That kind of stuff that relies of extrapolating meaning which is usually above the “sixth grade level reading”.
And it is indeed shocking how many people cannot do this. But in order to be shocked, I think people need to understand what is being tested here. A lot of social media does indeed condition folks to allow this level of reading to atrophy. The number of people who toss around TL;DR is really high and some of that is because it does not interest them. That of course is fine, but some of it is because 50% of the way through their brain is tired of reading text. AND THAT, is problematic. And really I can only touch on so much of the issue in this comment without it feeling like it is going on forever.
There are all kinds of assessment tests online that folks can review and see exactly the kind of questions that are being asked. The whence and wherefores on this matter and the causes for it happening are indeed complex and obviously I cannot cover them all here. But one big one, in my opinion, is education and its intersection with technology. Technology does indeed make lots of things easier for us, but some of those things that technology unburdens us from we should probably reexamine that relationship. Perhaps we need better education with technology or maybe we need less technology with that education, they both have pros and cons to them. There are not easy answers in this for the kind of background American education presents, which that is also an addressable matter in all of this.
that’s a wall of text, I’m not reading that
Low-hanging fruit
A strawberry? watermelon? cucumber?
I’m not good at this game /s
can someone recap it using an emoji?
🤷♂️
🐱🏍
two emojis? im not here to read a novel.
It’s actually one, “stunt cat”, but it’s shown as two on non-supported platforms.
LOL
Dumb it down for me doc?
I’m really sorry if this comes across as a TL;DR, but there’s a name for that. I’m positive you already know, but for the benefit of those interested, it’s called “functional illiteracy.” And it’s wild, still blows my mind to this day. Like, if you’re functionally illiterate, that doesn’t mean you don’t know how to read…it means you can read but can’t understand language written beyond the basic level. There are a lot of variables involved and I’m oversimplying a lot, but that’s it in a nutshell. It’s fucking terrifying, to be honest, especially because it’s so widespread.
Read to your kids, folks! And talk to them about it afterwards!
I feel like I encounter this alot at work. Write an email describing the problem, asking for clarification or a decision, and get a response back that seemingly ignores what is being asked with a question that was already answered in the previous email.
And the other classic: Ask 2 questions, eg in an email or even one post here. Clearly marked, with 1. and 2.
You can only ever expect to get back one answer. Comprehension and attention span of a…
“SQUIRREL!!”
To be fair, on here I will sometimes intentionally cherry pick a single asked question out of several asked, because I’m not at work, and nobody is going to question my performance if I don’t answer the question I don’t give a fuck about.
Username checks out 😆
So many people like this where I have to repeat myself 3 or 4 times before they understand what I said
Even more wild that a functional illiterate was elected president of the most powerful country in the world!
Read to my kids? Why would I want to turn my kids gay with WOKE READIN BOOKS?!
/s
You’ve indirectly highlighted the biggest issue I have with referring to literacy as “x-grade reading levels”. Literacy skills stack on top of each other and, sometimes, in slightly different orders. Calling them by a grade level makes people associate these skills with certain educational levels in school when, in reality, you only learn these skills from repetition and growth. I wish there were (and maybe there are and I’m just not familiar with them) clearer distinctions for these types of skills that meant more than “x-grade” which is practically meaningless to most people and harmful for those struggling with reading and comprehension.
There are standards of complexity that are set by grade level.
Here’s a resource with a great breakdown
https://www.weareteachers.com/reading-levels/#:~:text=Lexile® Reading Levels&text=The first digit of the,above your child’s current score.
Combines these with reading standards for various grades, and the metric makes a lot of sense. To say someone reads at a 5th grade level means they are technically literate but struggle to find true meaning, subtle concepts, and likely have a limited vocabulary.
Well that sounds like semantics that you take exception with, on how particular educational groups define things. Your frustration is well founded but misplaced on me. Indeed all things build and in different orders for different people no doubt. However, in the context of educational reporting at the government level, these are the labels that are applied in the various reports. And as all things, those things roll down hill.
There are, but politics being what they are, those labels are less meaningful labels to folks that arguably have the most power to change the course of things (that last part is strictly my opinion, sorry/not really sorry I injected it here). In short, I concur with your observation.
Yes, but this is exactly my issue. And I don’t think it’s about semantics, per se, but rather more about usefulness. Educational reporting using these terms is great for that demographic but is entirely useless for the people upon which it’s reporting.
I’d just like to note for the record that your post wasn’t a wall of text. Not only does it have paragraphs, it is also well-structured in its information delivery and you use connectives well, constantly answering “why am I reading this sentence (or subordinate clause)” in the first couple of words. This is not only easy to do (if you’re used to it), it also takes enormous load off the reader by not having them divine erm “train of thought context”, and actually follows natural speech patterns. But it does require that your thoughts are organised, that you can write the whole thing in one go, or you will have to go back and massage everything down to size. Which brings me to
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”.
Or, differently put: Writing skills are actually just as if not even more atrocious across the board. Another reason for tl;drs are people who are paid by word count.
The amount of people on this very site who cannot parse comments they have an emotional reaction to is staggering.
Lots of people are going to laugh at this and not realize it is describing them.
Why not both lmao
“This”
I read your first paragraph then skipped the rest of whatever you’re going on about. It’s about saving your time in a world where there’s near infinite amount of content to be able to read, it’s a skill to know what’s worth reading.
Right. I find myself doing this, yet I’m still able to read and consume whole chapters at a time in university textbooks
I agree to some extent, but honestly the time spent on reading lemmy/reddit/Twitter/etc could almost certainly be spent on more important literature. I’m not going to pretend that a few minutes in a sea of wasted hours really makes a difference.
The other thing that needs to be acknowledged here is that literacy has overwhelming been trending upwards over time. As grim as this is, it’s actually fantastic news when we look at where we used to be.
My reading skills tell me this author has a profound sense of sorrow about the state of the world.
This author is now also aware that there is no comfortable place in your mouth to rest your tongue.
This author is reminding you that you are suddenly aware of your breathing.
Based and discomfort-pilled
And you can feel your toes.
Ugh I just toe pilled myself, fucking karma. I’m going to put some socks on.
Yep.
This reminds me of how often people mistake skill for “natural talent”.
“Natural talent” exists, but someone without any particular natural talent who still has spent thousands of hours doing a thing is going to run circles around someone with “natural talent” who never put time and effort into practicing.
And I think when that skill is “reading”, people don’t power through the moments when their brain rebels, gets frustrated, or gets tired. So they hit that block, and don’t push through to overcome it. They go do something else…but they go do something else every single time. So a block that would be frustrating but minor in the big scheme of things gets codified in one’s mental image of themselves.
And once you have this idea that you are or are not something–that conception can turn into a huge mountain to overcome.
(As an aside, our parents have huge influence on if we think we “are” or “are not” something. It’s very worth it when you think you “can’t” do something to go back and look at your life and check if that voice in your head is yours, or if it’s the internalized voice of a parent who didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about!)
(Both people who were belittled as “stupid” and those who were constantly called “smart” can end up kinda “malfunctioning” later on, thinking they can’t do something. The ones called stupid think they can’t do something because “they’re dumb”, while the one called smart has been conditioned to fear not being 100% perfect, so they don’t even start because minor, genuinely trivial failures loom as large as the destruction of the entire earth in their minds!)
I definitely feel that, especially when you see people define themselves as “readers” or “not readers”. There’s no way that there isn’t a book out there for every person, but we aren’t always great at connecting kids with what actually motivates them to read and reflect. The Grapes of Wrath is an incredible and ever-relevant book, but there’s no way I could’ve appreciated it as such in high school. I know the same is true for many others because it was notorious for being a drag at my school. It just takes time to develop the critical reading skills and life experience that make you appreciate something like that, and not everyone has that by 6th grade or even graduation. I just don’t know how you go about continuing that education.
Me: oh man, adults can’t read??
Also me: let me find a comment that sums up this article for me.
On a serious note, great summary, cleared a lot of things up.
I’m not convinced that social media causes a loss of reading skills. I suppose it is possible but I would want to see some studies on the topic. Anecdotally, I do find myself reading less than I used to. I took a number of English lit classes as electives purely for fun and enjoyed reading a number of fun works that I think would hopefully qualify me as reading above a 6th grade level. But that was many years ago. I haven’t done a lot of reading in the last decade except for news articles about everything going to hell. Of the few books I have read, I read them for pleasure and each was lightweight, not too much analysis and explication required, one rather challenging history book about the lead up to the first world war notwithstanding, though it’s difficulty is due more to more complex sentence structure and arcane vocabulary, and less to its erudite discussion of an already complex topic. Nevertheless, I don’t believe I have had any difficulties demonstrating far beyond mere functional literacy you described despite my infrequent reading of anything longer than a news article or Reddit post. Still, this is anecdotal and so I would be interested to see if any scientific evidence exists to connect a loss of reading skills with disuse and to what degree those skills are diminished.
I tried looking for any studies on this, and all I can find is info on kids. Nothing in adults, except one study that found cognitive benefits to older adults who used social media.
Appreciate your efforts! Interesting find about social media. Would not have expected that.
I read all of this. I am definitely guilty of looking for a TL;DR. I absolutely believe my overuse of technology has caused my reading and writing skills to deteriorate significantly and my memory as well. I struggle with remembering and analyzing. I have never been a good book learner though. I suspect I have a learning disability that wasn’t quite bad enough for intervention when I was in school aside from special reading training in grade two or three.
In the context of social media, this isn’t really the same problem of not wanting to or being able to read longer stuff in general. There are countless screeds from any number of sources that you wouldn’t want to waste your time going through (not saying the above poster is one of them), so getting a general sense of a longer post is an important skill.
Being able to work through edited prose in detail is also important, but remember that it’s very different from what we all encounter online. In the immortal words of someone who probably wasn’t Twain or Pascal, “I did not have time to write a shorter letter.”
Bruh, I ain’t reading all that. You crazy?
A long time ago I reasoned that the poorest least educated of us would be functional illiterates for whom a separate glyph based language would be created. A smiley face does not require reading comprehension or analysis, nor does it produce a populace that asks questions.
I don’t think the landholders who run this shit want more than fifty percent literacy from the serfs who will be beholden to their grandchildren. Too many smart serfs would endanger their legacies, and too few would render the industrial collective serviced by their human capital uncompetitive.
The next few decades will be about them figuring out just how many smart motherfuckers they need, and how to keep those firecrackers too frightened to start a revolution. They’ll be minmaxing the hell out of us.
Hard tl;dr from me, dawg
Hey go easy. Some of us have ADHD.
It’s not that I don’t want to read a wall of text, but simply that I’m incapable of doing so.