The Erosion of Deep Literacy
nationalaffairs.com
The Erosion of Deep Literacy
1–10 of 91 posts
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#2Long and nice read.
Ten years ago, there was still heated debates about whether Nicolas Carr was right.
Now we kind of know he somehow was right, so parts of the debate are over, while others, still relevant parts, leave us speachless. Or maybe that's just me.
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#3What has changed is that most everyone now has the ability to contribute to civil discussion on social media. That means even very ignorant people. This must have some kind of effect on the public discourse I would think
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#4What has changed is that most everyone now has the ability to contribute to civil discussion on social media. That means even very ignorant people. This must have some kind of effect on the public discourse I would think
Not sure how it bears on the article, but yes I'd think that "very ignorant people" being able to more easily engage in discussion with those different from themselves and learn new facts and perspectives ought to very much raise the level of public discourse.
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#5What has changed is that most everyone now has the ability to contribute to civil discussion on social media. That means even very ignorant people. This must have some kind of effect on the public discourse I would think
Not sure how it bears on the article, but yes I'd think that "very ignorant people" being able to more easily engage in discussion with those different from themselves and learn new facts and perspectives ought to very much raise the level of public discourse.
I think you are:
A: Blind
B: An idiot
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#6This is a really interesting piece. I've been wanting to rage against illiteracy lately but I'm not too active in public discourse (even this).
That said, I don't think it's some secret key to improving humanity. I think this because literacy is ultimately a luxury, even in modernity. The literate may be able to form more nuanced opinions, but that matters less if they can't increase literacy consistently across populations.
There's an irony here that assumes deep literacy is productive and essential but doesn't use it to explain the proposed lack of deep literacy itself.
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#7Educational attainment has been increasing steadily since at least 1940 (as far back as the chart on Wikipedia shows): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
I am skeptical that this "deep literacy" is in fact eroding, since it's what lets you learn a topic well enough to get a degree. It's also hard work; I'll put in the effort on topics that matter -- as in topics that usefully inform my future actions, rather than topics that have abstract moral weight or whatever -- or sometimes for entertainment, but it's not a casual "all the time" thing and there seems to be a limit to how much I can do in a given day.
I learned growing up that TV rots your brain. Modern social media works the same way, except that sometimes you can actually engage with it and maybe it rots your brain a bit less in that case. This is called "mindless entertainment", and various forms of it have always been fairly popular. When I use shallow reading for mindless entertainment, it displaces whatever else I'd be doing for mindless entertainment. Which is different from displacing serious reading, or even from displacing learning things for entertainment / mental exercise.
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#8One thing that is interesting that the medium matters. For me, I am much more likely to read a programming physical book cover to cover in a short time, than an ebook. Sometimes, I have had an ebook for months, reading just snippets of it, but when I get the same book in physical form, I finish it in a few days. Anybody else have that experience?
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#9Educational attainment has been increasing steadily since at least 1940 (as far back as the chart on Wikipedia shows): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... I am skeptical that this "deep literacy" is in fact eroding, since it's what lets you learn a topic well enough to get a degree. It's also hard work; I'll put in the effort on topics that matter -- as in topics that usefully inform my fu…
I haven't read the article yet, but I want to say that I do not find your educational attainment stat to be a compelling counter argument. I don't think earning a degree represents deep literacy anymore if it ever really did--certainly not undergrad, and mostly not graduate level either. I think the incentives are wrong and the results are not "deep literacy" in any meaningful sense.
Your point about mindless entertainment replacing other mindless entertainment is pretty interesting. I guess my misgiving about that is the relative addictiveness or follow on effects of your chosen entertainment? Like if your mindless entertainment is heroin, that has effects on your mind that go beyond the time spent.
If our new mindless entertainment also saturates not only our time but our attention--not just at the moment, but our ability to attend to things in general, given the feedback cycle our brain is habituated to--that is potentially worth worrying about.
Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy
#10This is a really interesting piece. I've been wanting to rage against illiteracy lately but I'm not too active in public discourse (even this). That said, I don't think it's some secret key to improving humanity. I think this because literacy is ultimately a luxury, even in modernity. The literate may be able to form more nuanced opinions, but that matters less if they can't increase literacy consistently across popu…
"those who dont know history are bound to repeat it"
literacy is the only way to improve humanity.