Touche. My concern is that the the Information Age was touted for years as a grand opportunity for human enlightenment, but it seems the exact opposite is happening. We have more avenues of communication available to use than ever before, but we seem to do less and less substantive communication. As internet-speak regresses toward the lowest common denominator, it seems to me that the 'net exists not as a bastion of resistance to illiteracy, but as a facilitator of functional illiteracy. I'm hoping I'm just an overly paranoid fuddy-duddy, but considering the fact I'm not starting to see punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors in newspapers, magazines, books, and even reference works, I don't believe so. How long will it be before the average person truly has no ability to discern a well-written sentence from, well, pure drivel?
/thread hijack
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Google "Twitter Whore" and play the two-part parody video of that name. It's a riot. (I'm too lazy to insert a link right now.)
2. I always thought Twitter was a waste of time on superficiality. Then I had an experience a few months ago. Was in a three-way email exchange with a Silicon Valley CEO and the friend of mine who put had put me in contact with said CEO a couple months earlier. CEO asked a question that I thought I could respond to. Realizing that he was a real busy kinda guy -- and I was just a dweeb academic type -- I spent 3.5 hours trying to compose my response and keep it under 500 words. (As you know, I don't do short very often.)
Finally said heck with it and sent it out (about 550 words, IIRC). Within 30 minutes, the CEO dude has responded. With a Twitter-length response that in its one sentence had more content than my 550 word tome.
From then on I've been a believer. I'm not particularly interested in following the Nick Barnett's and Ochocinco's of the world as they Twitter, but I am trying to figure out how people like that CEO do it.
Yeah, there's lots of shit out there on the internet. Illiteracy, idiocy and worse. But maybe because it's because I've been in various historical archives a bit over the year, or because in the pre-internet age I spent lots of time browsing libraries and pulling random books off the shelves. But, trust me, in the old days, the ratio of shit to value was just as high. It's just that the data set is so much bigger now that it seems worse.
I admit, there are times when I wonder whether we're trying to rebuild the Tower of Babel. But I'm still an optimist in general. And I'm particularly optimistic about Gen Y. I just think they're going to do things that we Boomer fuck-ups never did.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)