TextSpeak
Do you speak to your adult friends in the same manner in which you text?
A disturbing trend seems to be developing supporting Chris Hedges theory in his book Empire of Illusion:The End of Literacy. The question arises as to which direction are ultimately heading?
It would be easy to blame technology for what seems to be our degrading social acumen as a society but that direction would seem to have already been cemented and technology just made it easier for us follow that path. A disconnect among us is in epic proportions. My sister doesn't even argue with me in person or over the phone anymore with her preferred method being texting. It's not uncommon for an exchange among us to include 40 texts, mostly hers, for a single exchange. Most of write the way we speak which has burdened the skill of writing with enhancing how we speak. There seems to be a trend that has some going in the other direction however. The rapid quick fast nature of blogging, text messages, and the character limit on Twitter has required avid users of these mediums to shorten their method to convey communications to a tech short hand and for some has changed the way they speak to one another. Adults resorting to using omg in a sentence doesn't bode well in my opinion. At least we can't speak in emojis. Not yet anyway.
The statistics are disturbing. Less than 24% of Amercians read a single book last year in any format and although we are reading more than we usually do, the fast paced skimming we do online doesn't have the same benefits that come with deep prolonged reading does. We can't focus or concentrate as a result. We aren't' developing our critical thinking skills if anything they are diminishing rapidly and as technology positions itself to do more for us in the future, e.g. driverless cars, we will be required to use our brains even less. In his book Small Data Martin Lindstrom even writes about how the removal of knobs and levers from everything has weakened grip strength in teens as a whole. How long will it be before we are all just piles of jelly walking around without any awareness about what's going on around us with most of our interaction and information given to us by a machine? Or are we already there?
#elliotyi
#paradigmleft
#habits
#mindset
A disturbing trend seems to be developing supporting Chris Hedges theory in his book Empire of Illusion:The End of Literacy. The question arises as to which direction are ultimately heading?
It would be easy to blame technology for what seems to be our degrading social acumen as a society but that direction would seem to have already been cemented and technology just made it easier for us follow that path. A disconnect among us is in epic proportions. My sister doesn't even argue with me in person or over the phone anymore with her preferred method being texting. It's not uncommon for an exchange among us to include 40 texts, mostly hers, for a single exchange. Most of write the way we speak which has burdened the skill of writing with enhancing how we speak. There seems to be a trend that has some going in the other direction however. The rapid quick fast nature of blogging, text messages, and the character limit on Twitter has required avid users of these mediums to shorten their method to convey communications to a tech short hand and for some has changed the way they speak to one another. Adults resorting to using omg in a sentence doesn't bode well in my opinion. At least we can't speak in emojis. Not yet anyway.
The statistics are disturbing. Less than 24% of Amercians read a single book last year in any format and although we are reading more than we usually do, the fast paced skimming we do online doesn't have the same benefits that come with deep prolonged reading does. We can't focus or concentrate as a result. We aren't' developing our critical thinking skills if anything they are diminishing rapidly and as technology positions itself to do more for us in the future, e.g. driverless cars, we will be required to use our brains even less. In his book Small Data Martin Lindstrom even writes about how the removal of knobs and levers from everything has weakened grip strength in teens as a whole. How long will it be before we are all just piles of jelly walking around without any awareness about what's going on around us with most of our interaction and information given to us by a machine? Or are we already there?
#elliotyi
#paradigmleft
#habits
#mindset
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