For myself it was my parents and my grade school teachers. They taught me what each letter sounded like and what happened when you put a bunch of those sounds together; they create words. We then learn that each of these words have a different meaning and that those meanings can change depending on how they are used. These words and meanings are everywhere. We have developed our brains to the point that we can analyze these simple words without even realizing it.
When you're in school, the goal is to learn new words and expand your vocabulary. With each and every passing year, the words got longer and harder to understand. What was the point of this? Put simply to make us smarter and to give us the opportunity to achieve great things.
But does this concept still apply today? Do we still need to be savvy in this challenging language? Or have new technologies, particularly text messaging and the Internet, made it possible for us to revert back to the simple words we learned in grade school.
In my personal opinion, people have given up on widening their knowledge. People have become content with having the vocabulary of a grade-schooler. Not to say that people are no longer intelligent, because they still are, but in a different way. Instead of putting effort into writing essays and great novels, people are writing in the form of blogs, and posts, and texts. Due to the formatting of these mediums, impressive words are "obsolete". They have become unnecessary and impossible to use because audiences do not understand them. Its not that they can't, its the fact that our brains today are moving so quickly that they no longer have the time to pause and carefully read what is in front of them. The words that can keep up with this pace are short and simple. Abbreviations have become popular and words are now spelt differently. For example, instead of typing "I'll be right back" one would type "brb". Or in stead of spelling out the word skater, one would spell it sk8er. All of this because it is faster and easier to understand. One could argue that having the brain of a grade-schooler is now acceptable and intelligence is no longer privilege to a scholarly vocabulary.
We did not learn this new language from our parents and our teachers. No we created it ourselves and have designed machines (computers) to communicate with us in this new language. The invention of the computer has made it almost impossible for us to read anymore. In the past reading long essays that consisted of hundreds of words was an easy task. However, now-a-days one cannot get through more than 30-50 words without being distracted by numerous pop-up ads, pictures, and other links. As Marshall McLuhan said: "Media are not just channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought." We no longer think for ourselves. Computers tell us how to think and give us the information to think about. In the article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Barr, he states "And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."
Contrary to all of this, some would argue that we are reading more today than we ever have in the past. In a way this is true, as I have previously stated we are always reading and analyzing. However it is a different kind of reading and a new kind of analyzing and thinking.
Our reading skills are not the only thing that has taken a hit. Our ability to write has also been changed by computers. When writing in silence, with nothing but the sound of your pen against the paper, words tend to be more personal and elegant. In contrast, when typing on a keyboard, words have a tendency to be computerized. They lack style and emotion, instead they sound like they could have been put together by a cyborg or robot.
Overall computers and the Internet have changed the way we understand the simplest of words. What we learned in grade school has never been more useful.
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