Teh intrnetz makes us stoooopid!

My apologies for missing class today, I'm feeling a bit under the weather :(

There have been quite a few articles I've read lately that discuss intelligence levals and how they are affected by reading. In my last post I disagreed with the argument that in order to read you have to be smart. In this post I will disagree with the argument that the internet is making us stupid.
The fact that people believe the internet is making us stupid is stupidity in and of itself. The internet is simply changing the way we process information. Reading on the internet is different from reading a physical text, or from writing with a pen, but that doesn't mean that it is any less conducive to learning. In fact I think that because of internet reserach and reading people have learned to process information at a much quicker pace because internet information is thrown at you at a much quicker pace. If people are able to process information quicker because of internet reading I don't understand why they can't do the same with books. In the Google article Dr. Bruce Friedman M.D. writes, "I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print." He claims that his thinking has taken on a "staccato" quality due to the way he quickly scans short passages online. While this may be true, I think this way of thinking can be developed from reading books as well. Who is to say that this "staccato" thinking is attributed simply to internet reading? Perhaps it came from reading short excerpts from medical articles, small chapters from medical journals, and a number of possible other places. It's unfortunate that Dr. Friedman is no longer able to read War and Peace, but i don't know many people that read that for a leisurly good time anyway.
Like I mentioned earlier the internet is not making us any more or less intelligent, it is simply changing the way we look at written words. Much like the changes brought about from orality to written word, the switch from written word to internet reading is changing the way our brain looks at things. I think that because of internet reading I have become a faster reader and my brain is able to reccognize words more quickly. I can glance at a page of text and find some meaning just by lightly scanning the page because my brain is able to pick up key words so i can understand the main points of the text. I don't always read like this because truthfully that isn't reading, it's skimming, but i think that the fact that my brain has been taught to skim whether it be from internet reading, reading bill boards as a drive down 94, or from reading actual physical texts, is a useful and efficient tool to have.

Reedin iz 4 smrt peoplz

I can no longer open the reading at risk file because my computer has a mind of its own, otherwise I would quote the part that I didn't agree with but instead I'll have to paraphrase from memory. It said something along the lines of technology demands less attention than reading and because of this attention spans are getting shorter and people are becoming more stupid. Also it equated reading with intelligence saying something about reading being a progressive skill dependent on years of practice.
Call me crazy, but I don't think you have to be particularly intelligent or have "years of practice" to be able to read. I have a lot of stupid guy friends that "read" Playboy on a regular basis (because it has such great articles) and although the light reading is accompanied by naked women my friends are reading none the less. These guys are not particularly intelligent, they bought the magazine for the sole purpose of looking at naked women, but they still READ. They did not practice reading for years, in fact they all dropped out of high school, and they are reading something of little to no importance, but the fact of the matter is they are still reading.
I brought this up briefly on the discussion board and I'm going to bring it up here again. If I was interviewed for this survey I would have been one of the adults that don't read because the survey specified reading as a leisurely activity not related to school or work. I can't remember the last time I read a book leisurely. The survey dismissed the millions of college students that read much more than the average person, but because they are reading for a purpose it doesn't count. I don't get it. It seems like the survey was conducted with all these exceptions as to what constitutes reading because the NEA wanted to see a certain result. I feel like someone woke up one day and said I'm going to go out and prove that reading is on the decline, and in order to do this I am going to skew the information and exclude the people that spend the majority of their time reading.... and six years later I'm going to completely change my viewpoint and show that reading is now on the rise. I bet it was my stupid playboy reading friends that conducted this survey.

Adult illiteracy

I found today's class handouts to be very interesting. My group looked at a teaching guide for tutors that work with illiterate adults. Surprisingly adults were taught to write in the exact same way as children (by copying letters until their fingers hurt). However, the approach to teaching adults was quite different. The tutors would have the adult students write in a journal, but the tutors would also keep a journal. Every week the student and the tutor would exchange journals so they could read each others ideas. I believe this was done to set the adult student and the tutor as equals so as not to demean the adult. It was also mentioned that spelling was not corrected in the journals unless the adult wanted to specifically concentrate on spelling. It was surprising to me that spelling was so downplayed because I didn't understand how one could learn to read and write without being taught proper spelling. I then talked to a friend of mine that teaches children how to read and she said that the first aspect she teaches is proper letter formation, followed by conveying ones ideas in a practical way, and proper spelling was taught last, otherwise the children became overwhelmed and irritable. I could imagine adults getting irritable as well since it must be harder to learn writing as an adult than as a child.
As far as Knoblach's definitions of literacy my group's piece highlighted functional literacy and literacy for personal growth. If an adult is illiterate they are most probably trying to learn how to read and write in hopes of better functioning in society ie: writing a grocery list, reading directions, filling out a job application, and other everyday necessities. Literacy for personal growth is also a main factor in why illiterate adults would attempt to learn reading and writing. Perhaps to better themselves in their occupations, to teach their children, or simply to gain a sense of personal satisfaction.
We also tried to look at our article from the point of view of an illiterate adult to see if the tutors teaching methods would actually be helpful in teaching an adult how to read and write. Since we were all taught reading and writing in the standard American way we could not think of any alternatives to teaching adults. We could only think of the way we were taught as children. According to this teaching guide this method is still being used to teach adults, but is done so in such a way that equates them with their teachers so as not to demean them.
I found the article quite interesting and look foward to discussing it in next week's class.