…Microblogging Is Dumbing Us Down
1. It’s so easy. 140 characters max. You can SMS from your phone. Or contribute through your browser. It’s quick. But the reality is that short messaging and rapid communication has to have affected our ability to write well. Grammar sucks because you only have a limited number of characters, so short-forms, acronyms and emoticons have replaced well thought out prose. And many people seem to have lost their passion for the written word and dedicate little time to it. But it doesn’t have to be this way, as The Spin Stops Here offers, “Writing can be a lifelong pursuit and a real source of enjoyment. Finding the perfect words to express your thoughts and convictions is like mastering a painting or a dance - it takes time and effort but the payoff can be incredible.”
2. Proponents of microblogging profer that it is an incredibly efficient tool to disseminate information. Accepted, without argument, when it is used properly! Unfortunately, most content is about inane subject matter. You ate a crepe for breakfast! Wonderful! Some services, like Plurk, go so far as to start your sentences for you, so you don’t even have to write out complete thoughts.
3. Depending on how many microblogs one follows, a lot of time and brainpower can be wasted during the day. Putting aside any arguments about productivity, the consumption of inane chatter takes up time that could be spent reading more valuable information and occupies space in your brain that is already packed (and losing gray matter every day). It’s also interesting that we seem to be happy to read about every tiny facet of someone’s life through 140 characters clips, but get annoyed when we overhear the details of someone life as they talk on the phone or are forced to eavesdrop on people having conversation in a public place. Then again, I guess we don’t have the option of subscribing (or unsubscribing) to a loud talker.
4. Without any empirical evidence for backup, it seems that many people have become reactive thinkers, particularly among the younger set of technophiles that are being brought up on the speed and ease of “contributing to the conversation.” The easier it is to achieve immediacy, the faster it is that we can react and the less thought that goes into our responses. Think back to the days of hand-written letters, and the time and care it took to craft one. The typewriter, and then faxes, made communicating a little faster. But the world changed dramatically with email and microblogging as an environment was created that resulted in little need, or desire, for reflection. Furthermore, In a widely cites article, Nick Carr argues that all of these little chunks of data has reduced our ability to master long, complex arguments.
5. As the Guardian hypothesizes, the vehicles on which we read and write online may be contributing to our dumbing down. Reading on a screen is tiring and takes longer than a similar exercise on paper. Plus, with paper you don’t get sidetracked by embedded links and the notifier that you’ve got mail, which of course you must check immediately!
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1. The emergence of the iPod as the personal music player of choice has turned us into illiterate zombies. Having created the ultimate instrument for portability of audio entertainment (and video?), the ubiquity of the iPod (and its copycats) has transformed public transportation and significantly contributed to the demise of the newspaper industry. And maybe reading in general! The days of commuters occupying their time with print are waning. We’re far too happy listening rather than reading and it’s killing newspaper editors. Except those free ones. Yeah, they’re popular. As long as they’re free.
