WCHS here #2448650 wrote: “Today’s youngsters, by virtue of being youngsters and thus less skilled in reading and writing, probably use the microphone on their devices more often than do us oldsters, who are more skilled in reading and writing.”
This is a good observation and, I think, also a deep one. But I do not quite agree with its larger implication that “youngsters” are mostly refractory to reading and writing, compared to what it was the case in ages past. Perhaps now their elders do not stimulate them enough, for example with birthday gifts that include books? With stories at bed time and then books with collections of those stories?
My counterargument, to get things going:
“Exhibit A is the fact that earlier this century, from 2000 through 2007, youngsters were sleeping in sidewalks rather than to loose their place in the queue to the entrance of a bookshop, the night before a new novel of Harry Potter, usually a book of considerable heft, was scheduled to come out. Have the reading and writing skill of youngsters, and their interest on the printed word plummeted in less than two decades?
I think the answer must be a nuanced one: it really depends on which youngsters we are talking about. Because youngsters, being people, do come in all shapes and sizes, both externally and in their insides.
That does not mean that people who can, do and like to read and write are never to be found doom-scrolling on outsize cellphones. Well, yes, probably they can be. Humans, young and old, are like that: hard to pin down and sort out into neat boxes.”
I am starting this thread here, in “rants”, but I believe that the consideration of this topic can go beyond a series of “kids these days” grumblings.
Or so I am hoping that will be the discussion that, I again hope, will follow.
Or else this new thread will be ignored and die in the vine with just a few comments, maybe this opening one being the first and last it will ever get.
How this goes in not up to me.
This topic, I also believe, is one that is of interest to parents and grand parents, and even, who knows? to great-grand parents, that hang around here at AskWoody. And to “youngsters” too, of course. Because it is a topic that has been known to show up in media commentary, as well as in family and friends discussions in many places elsewhere for quite some time already — and it is about how people use technology to communicate and see the world, and what changes to what means to be human this might be bringing along.
So, hopefully looking forward to a good discussion: please comment away, if you will.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
