The Dumbing Down of America and the Internet

 I disagree with the notion of reading formulas. Individual writing draws upon the literacy level of the author. Formulas are ridiculous as I said in one of my replies. We have taken the art of writing and turned into rocket science. 

"The Dumbing Down of America" illustrates the movement to reduce the literacy level of America. It is easier to influence and control people who are illiterate than those who embrace science and technology as myself.

I see the transition of people who used to sit down in the evening and listen to the radio and read a book in bed. Today people have unlimited free time it seems in the evening to binge watch television shows on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and countless other stations. 

Children have too much time to play video games, and watch television. That translates to children in K-12 not being given enough homework or books to read. Only in today's society are we banning books again, as the Nazi did in Germany during World War II.

Florida is banning books that don't meet the criteria of the politicians. Censorship of knowledge is a dangerous road to take. Look at the incredible number of people who have no knowledge of chemistry, biology, physics, medicine, engineering, astronomy, climatology, along with thousands of other areas of knowledge.

I find it very sad when over the span of 60 years I have seen the decline in enthusiasm for knowledge and the pursuit of truth. There has been many Philip K Dick, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Kurzweil, along with thousands of other authors that people are not aware of in the areas of enlightenment of life. Classic books like Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, and many other classics have been banned.

There is even an effort in the schools in the south to change the reference of “Slavery” to “Indentured Servitude”.   Books and articles, technical, and fiction should be judged on connect and flow of information, with an introduction, main body content, and conclusion.

I have written dozens of articles on political and technical areas on my blogs, covering a wide range of writing. The secret of good writing is to continue to do so. I have contacted many authors of books, some I know, who all advise me to keep writing to improve the flow of your thoughts. Organization a layout is key, the develop the paper with its terminology. If you incorporate sophisticated medical, or technical terminology, explain yourself. Ray Kurzweil wrote a great book “Fantastic Voyage” about the future of technology and human/computer interfacing, explained everything form layman to college level explanations.  

Anyone writing technical starts with a broad overview and then incrementally increasing the use of complex language and terms over the course of the book, or paper. In many technical publications, there is a index or Table at the end of the paper of book, explaining all the terminology used in the paper or publication with references of further explanation of the terms used.

I don’t think we should continue this allowing simpler writing, but the opposite, with books for every class to be the key issues, instead of ADHD teaching of random urls and websites as a reference. Textbooks have been the foundation for teaching course for hundreds of years. I am resistant, and reluctant to adopt this infinite internet of all knowledge. The internet has many good and bad writers out there. There is a great deal of disinformation that can confuse and mislead many people who are trying to write on a topic. But, only the future of active students, teachers, and parents to provide a critique of the importance of effective communication in a society with information overload.

Referring to articles for a class are helpful, but ADHD! We always should have at least one book for a class. For a Psychology Class I had at Foothill College I had to read 4 books in 10 weeks. Most Americans cannot read at 1000 wps. The fault is the parents and schools for not giving students enough work. That is why they have so much free time to play video games, and get in trouble.

Read the book, compare the books for classrooms with the ones published 50 years, you will see a radical difference. Public schools are a failure, you don't learn financial education, Biology, Genetics, Chemistry, Physics, Financial Literacy, Basic Cooking, Exposure to Classic Literature with no censorship, Speed Reading, and creative writing in grade school. I had an English class in 4th grade where there was little or no writing, and only Spelling Tests.

It was horrible, surveys and thousands of studies have found most students who graduate high school are no prepared for college! 

Many students who went to school in New York go to South Carolina and are 2-3 grades ahead of those students. We are laughed at by European countries whereby students are taught Calculus in High school and learn 4 languages before they graduate. We feed our student horrible cafeteria food, while student in France in elementary school get world class French cuisine. No fast food allowed in most parts of Europe.

I totally disagree with this evaluation. I was reading the Scarlet Letter in middle school. Students today don't have to read as many books each year, as they did in the 1970's. They have too many distractions, such as endless movies, tv shows, social media, internet.

There is consensus all students K-12 should have only 1 months off a year. The amount of knowledge you need to learn before graduation.

Most students in America when they go from High School to University work they fall flat on their face due to being unprepared for higher college.

School Systems now are having teachers quit teaching due to liability issues, as we become a nation with states such as Florida, Texas, and other southern states, using theocracy, and Nazi position of banning books, and burning them next I anticipate.  Times and attitudes on things change, but we should never forget the evolution of tolerance, and racial, and ethnical cultural understanding. 

Students learn more in movies today, than in reading a book. 

The greatest challenge is how do we get our youth away from television, and video games to focus on learning at least K-14 grades.

Reagan had an advisor that felt if all Americans had access to free education it would undermine corporate America, whereby only the wealthy should be allowed to have higher education.

 References

Delisle, J. R. (2014). Dumbing Down America. New York: Prufrock Press. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-America-Nations-Brightest/dp/1618211668

Florida's book bans: Which titles are being pulled from school media centers? (n.d.). Retrieved from The Ledger: https://www.theledger.com/story/news/state/2022/04/26/florida-school-book-bans-these-library-titles-being-reviewed-school-boards/9542938002/

Jarrett, C., & Redish, J. ‘. (n.d.). Readability Formulas: 7 Reasons to Avoid Them and What to Do Instead. Retrieved from UXMatters: https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2019/07/readability-formulas-7-reasons-to-avoid-them-and-what-to-do-instead.php

Readability Formulas. (n.d.). Retrieved from Hunter College: https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/irb/education-training/smog-readability-formula

State education board members push back on proposal to use “involuntary relocation” to describe slavery. (n.d.). Retrieved from The Teas Tribune: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/30/texas-slavery-involuntary-relocation/

Reagan's 1967 Speech Changed Purpose Of College Forever, Says Journalist. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wisconsin Public Radio: https://www.wpr.org/reagans-1967-speech-changed-purpose-college-forever-says-journalist