Disposable Words
Is the written word becoming disposable?
With computers having become ubiquitous and the internet providing instant access to news, information and entertainment, “leet speak” and acronyms taking place of actual words, and the sheer laziness of people complaining that words are “too difficult to spell“, has the written word lost it’s cachet?
The more I dig into the offerings of the internet, its message boards and social sites, I’m astounded at how trivial people treat spelling and punctuation. I’ll be the first to admit that I myself am not the perfect practitioner of grammar, but at least I try to spell and apply the correct punctuation where appropriate. For others, however, it’s as if speed is more important then precision; the lack of capitalization, punctuation and spelling seems to take a back seat to spitting out misshapen, inarticulate thoughts without review or analysis.
And hey, sometimes that’s exactly what’s called for…but when it becomes a habit, and that habit becomes accepted behavior, I fear for the intellectual future of this current generation that has never known a day without the internet, books on CD, grammar checkers and cut-and-paste.
Words have been cheapened. Ideas are recycled and regurgitated so fast that critical thought and examination have fallen by the wayside. Reading material by Brautigan, Wolfe, Hemingway, Burroughs, Thompson, Wells and Twain has fallen out of style, replaced by hourly updates about celebrity rumors and pop culture news from questionable sources such as TMZ, DIGG, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Fark, Gawker and OMG.
We’ve become a people raised on disposable information and carefully managed sound bites. We’re conditioned to process information a miserable 140 characters at a time. Reading novels is far too time consuming. Unpopular. Passé. Hell, even blogs like mine are contributing to the decline of our short attention span society. It’s been proven that to have a successful blog means keeping paragraphs short. We’re just helping to support negative behavior in our pursuit of unique visitors.
As bloggers, we’re such whores. A dirty lot.
“Well, if you think you know everything, then what’s the solution?” I can hear you ask. I really don’t know. Honestly, I don’t have a solid answer. This situation is driven by the environment, but if you’re a parent I’d suggest having your that kid simply read. Turn off the computer, the stereo, the television, prop them up on the couch, and have them read. Heck, have them read aloud to you. Get them to critically think about what they’ve read. Engage their minds without the static of outside interferences. Explain to them that “BFF” and “LOL” are not real words and will never find acceptance from companies reviewing their resume. Teach them that quick information is fine, but literary discoveries will always be much more rewarding.
(HermanTurnip pauses and re-reads what he just wrote)
Jeez…when did I turn into my old man!?
OMG…I so agree!
In fact, I was just thinking about this last week. I can’t tell you the last time I actually sat down and read a book or handwrote a letter to someone. It’s like I can’t seem to concentrate that long anymore, because I’m so use to quickly typing something out and either hitting send or publish.
I laughed at your reference to LOL and BBF because when I first started blogging, I had no idea what they even meant -HA!
I much prefer blogging over communicating through FB or Twitter, because at least blogging allows us to share a full story. Also, it’s enabled me to gradually meet some really great people.
FAB post! Enjoyed it thoroughly!
I lost focus about halfway through your post. Here, let me help you: “leet speak suxors. Old skool rulz!” Done and done. It is all just a symptom of societal conditioning to produce and consume at an exponentially faster pace. I resist reading books because a blog or article synopsis can do the job in less time. I don’t often listen to a complete song on my iPod because I am already bored a minute into it. I just can’t give anything my full attention because I have become so conditioned to multitask. Shower and brush my teeth at the same time? Check. Shower, shave, AND brush my teeth at the same time? Uh, huh.
I just sat in on a hiring panel at work a week ago and many interviewees could not string two coherent sentences together. “So, Mr. Jones, what assets and skills could you bring to our company?” Responses were something like, “Uh. Ummm. Well, uh. I, you know, am like a hard worker and stuff.” That kind of verbosity might be kosher for a burger flipping job, but not in the IT industry. Another example of fly-like attention span: they ask you to repeat the question for every other question given. My employer long ago learned to give applicants a form to fill out as a way to test actual writing and comprehension skills. Based on that we can tell with reasonable certainty who cheated through college or paid a service to write their resume.
That Washington Post article was scary! Encouraging “Noospell” is not going to improve society. Where does it end? Will we devolve into grunts and hand motions to communicate because it’s easier? Orwell must be spinning so fast in his grave that he’s gone nuclear.
@Rash Diprock Rash! Great to hear from ya. Yeah, I agree that we live in a fast moving environment. I’m just wish people would stop looking for shortcuts to make up for their shortcomings. “Noospell”, indeed! Heh…