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[DunDunDunpachi]

I get ads for this service called 'Grammarly'. They market it as a "writing assistant" but it's essentially auto-correct on crack. Not only will it correct spelling and basic syntax mistakes, but it will also suggest better words or even phrasing. In the ads, enthusiastic actors talk about how their writing has improved since they've switched on their Grammarly subscription.

I recall learning how to type and edit in computer class many years ago. The teachers told us we couldn't always rely on auto-correct and the right-click 'Thesaurus' option. There were flaws back then -- the system didn't catch misuse of they're/their/there -- so if a student relied on it too heavily, it would show up in their papers.

I have nothing against tools that help me catch typos and mistakes in my phrasing. However, I think that tools like Grammarly may end up making us significantly dumber.

The ability to formulate thoughts and "think for yourself" is an important function for every human. Auto-correct is a helpful tool, but it isn't a substitute for actual content, actual thought.

If the machines get smart enough to take what you hastily typed on an iPhone screen and turn it into something understandable, that seems convenient, agreed? What if this comes at the cost of brainpower, though? What if we are stunting our brains by relying more and more on auto-correct as time goes on?

The idea isn't too incredulous. We've researched the link between intelligence and vocabulary for decades, both in adults as well as children.

There's also this study, indicating that the way you navigate a 3D space in a videogame may grow or shrink your hippocampus. The reason is interesting: if you navigate the 3D world using traditional spacial orientation (such as making note of buildings, estimating your path using moutains, rivers, etc) the grey matter increases. However, if you navigate the 3D world using "non-spacial" strategies such as following directions, moving toward a waypoint, and using an automated compass it can shrink grey matter in this area of the brain.

Plenty of surveys, articles, and studies have demonstrated that spelling, vocabulary, and grammar are linked to intelligence. Neglecting these soft skills results in a decrease of your brain-matter in relevant areas of your noggin'.

All this is to say that the way we use technology can have a positive or a negative effect on our brains.

Written communication already puts us at a disadvantage when trying to convey something to another person. We have to infer tone, intention, and value through our words in lieu of body language and verbal cues. If everyone has a tool instructing them how to say something, then written communication becomes more difficult to read. Everything becomes a cookie-cutter, auto-corrected blur.

Worse, I can't trust the intention of what I am reading. Did the person intend to say "without any consideration" or did Grammarly insert that phrase on their behalf? I go by the rule that if you don't understand the meaning of a word, you shouldn't use it. Otherwise, our communication becomes fuzzy and meaningless instead of sharp and well-intentioned.

The result is the email may read nicely, but you could have a dullard on the other end of the keyboard.

Writing is one matter. Reading is another. These two practices are joined at the hip and blur together upon close examination. Is illiteracy a writing issue or a reading issue? It's both. If you need a digital "writing assistant" to insert a nice-sounding word that you don't understand, you certainly won't grasp that word when reading it in an article or in a book. Reliance on such tools robs you of the chance to learn a new word or phrase for yourself. As a bonus, your brain grows a tiny bit to accommodate the new slice of knowledge.

Free tip from this lit nerd: never pass up the chance to learn a new word. If you encounter one in a book, investigate it. Don't gloss over it because the meaning of the passage may be lost without the nuance of that word. The ability to read matters:

A study comparing the neuropsychological abilities of illiterate subjects to schooled subjects across a wide age range (16 - 85 years), found that illiteracy affected many other cognitive abilities outside of reading and writing.

Results indicated a significant educational effect on most of the tests. Largest educational effect was noted in constructional abilities (copying of a figure), language (comprehension), phonological verbal fluency, and conceptual functions (similarities, calculation abilities, and sequences). Aging effect was noted in visuoperceptual (visual detection) and memory scores. In the first subject sample, it was evident that, despite using such limited educational range (from 0–4 years of formal education), and such a wide age range (from 16–85 years), schooling represented a stronger variable than age. ​

Study source. Bolded emphasis mine.

---

Do you use these tools and think I'm off my old-man rocker?
Do you have experience that validates or contradicts the idea that Grammarly (and similar tools) makes us dumber?
Do you have annoying co-workers who can't type for shit?
Did you read that whole thing? Bravo!

 

[Kadayi]

I've been using Grammarly for the last couple of years (I just use the basic free version ). I find it pretty handy as I'm mildly dyslexic so it picks up on a lot of the obvious mistakes I make which are less regular spelling mistakes but more omitted and double words. If you've read my posts on Discord, you'll note how often I make errors.

Often times if I'm going to compose a long post like for instance my recent one in the GAF Unkindness Club I prepped all of that in Grammarly beforehand. Even then it's not perfect and I still make mistakes (thus the edits on the post), but it operates as a decent safety net for someone like myself.

 

[strange headache]

Nothing better than a thoughtful OP by DunDunDunpachi to get the ol' neurons firing after a typical new year's handover

Auto-correcting tools are fine to catch the inevitable spelling mistake and you'll often find me editing my posts for that exact same reason. That being said, I think they are a poor substitute for a limited vocabulary. You ability to form complex ideas, abstract notions and to understand empirical as well as metaphysical questions correlates with your capacity to express these phenomena in words. The existence of a thing is inherently dependent on your capability of defining it, or as Kant would say:

Intuition and concepts … constitute the elements of all our cognition, so that neither concepts without intuition corresponding to them in some way nor intuition without concepts can yield a cognition. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make the mind’s concepts sensible—that is, to add an object to them in intuition—as to make our intuitions understandable—that is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers, or capacities, cannot exchange their functions. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only from their unification can cognition arise.

In simpler terms, the more notions you possess the better you you can bring meaning and understanding to the world. Words create worlds, after all.

The average modern human being writes and reads more than every before in human history, yet our ability to formulate coherent thoughts in a precise manner is generally degrading. This is due to the fact that most written communication is delegated to electronic communication, especially the mobile phone where, for the most part, only basic communication takes place. This is where many people pick up their bad spelling habits, because 'ain't nobody got time' to formulate a properly written message.

The English language has around 180.000 entries in the dictionary, yet the average native speaker only uses around 15,000 to 20,000 words. Moreover, most of these words are hardly ever used in day to day communication, which merely emphasizes my aforementioned observation:

If you learn only 800 of the most frequently-used lemmas in English, you'll be able to understand 75% of the language as it is spoken in normal life.

If you take a look at the most verbose hip hop artists, you'll find that those who are most popular are generally also the ones having the most limited vernacular:

Are people afraid of "complicated" words? I haven't quite been able to make up my mind about that, but I do know from experience that a lot of people simply do not care about looking up a word they do not understand. When it comes to pop culture, there's certainly a general trend towards simplified lyrics, at least compared to Musicians that were hugely popular in the past such as Bowie, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel.

Compare this great classic:



With the lyrics in this popular song:



Both are sexually explicit, but Peter Gabriel uses intelligent allegory and metaphor where most modern songs are so literal, their spartan lyrics barely elevate themselves above sentient speech. It's certainly one of the reasons why I find most modern music to be quite insufferable, because their verbiage appeals to the lowest common denominator. Either because the artists are barely capable of expressing themselves without flat out resorting to barbaric grunts, or because the producers are too afraid the lyrics might fly above their audience's heads. The same goes for so many video games, where the dialogue is so flat, it barely manages to convey the complexity of the situation the protagonists find themselves in [insert "my face is tired" meme here].

I often find myself pausing for a moment in order to reflect on the precise notion that I wish to convey. When it comes to debate, being precise is important, hence why establishing the semantic clarity of a certain notions is anything else but a waste of time. Is it pedantic? Maybe, but how can you expect to have meaningful conversation when participants have vastly differing conceptions about the things they want to talk about? I see words like "respect", "tolerance" and "justice" to be thrown around a lot, but hardly do I ever find people who are actually capable of defining those terms. The end result are people parroting these virtues without truly understanding them.

Did you read that whole thing? Bravo!

tl;dr

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I've been using Grammarly for the last couple of years (I just use the basic free version ). I find it pretty handy as I'm mildly dyslexic so it picks up on a lot of the obvious mistakes I make which are less regular spelling mistakes but more omitted and double words. If you've read my posts on Discord, you'll note how often I make errors.

Often times if I'm going to compose a long post like for instance my recent one in the GAF Unkindness Club I prepped all of that in Grammarly beforehand. Even then it's not perfect and I still make mistakes (thus the edits on the post), but it operates as a decent safety net for someone like myself.

The tools is valuable if you suffer from a learning disorder like dyslexia. That way, you can engage with others and be understood instead of fighting against your own brain to put something into words. I get that. It sounds to me like you're already going back over your work and "prepping" using Grammarly as the assistant, and that's hardly different that proofreading it yourself.

My concern is what happens when people lose the impetus (and then the ability) to proofread their own work and self-reflect upon what is being said. Proper writing is far more than just spelling the word correctly and using good sentence structure. Proper writing requires an understanding of the rules and manipulating them to convey your intentions. If Grammarly paves over everything with a glossy sheen, individual voices lose some color and nuance as a result, even if it is done in the name of "proper" grammar and readability.

My mother teaches remedial students entering community college. Over the years of discussing the topic with her, she emphasizes that most of the literacy problems at that stage of life are because of significant intellectual shortcomings. Not that those students are "stupid", but they lack most of the underlying structure. Asking them to "put something into their own words" or to "come up with an argument and defend it" is something these grown adults cannot grasp (until they are taught, of course). This makes it difficult for them to communicate properly, let alone communicate properly in written form.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these students are not mentally retarded. Rather, they are students who somehow passed through the school system without learning how to properly read and write. When I say "remedial", she is teaching college students the structure of a paragraph, the structure of a sentence, and how to write one-page papers with some sense of focus and conceptualization.

That isn't aimed at you of course. Just thinking more on the topic.

 

[livestOne]

i dont know why youre treating this as some global event these quality of life subscription based apps are targeted to millenial americans.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

In simpler terms, the more notions you possess the better you you can bring meaning and understanding to the world. Words create worlds, after all.

"The brain is a muscle" is a pretty stupid truism, but it applies here. If you don't have the words to describe a complex idea, then you won't be able to think about that complex idea. Nor can you flesh it out and give it substance. You've shut your brain off from an avenue of imagination and innovation, merely by not knowing the right words.

In the scaffolding of our minds, we hang little nuances and connections on every word we know. The more nuances and connections we have, the more colorful life becomes. A person will see the world differently when they have more labels with which to organize reality in their mind. Such a vocabulary allows us to imagine grand concepts and play with ideas curiously instead of apprehensively.

The emotions and impulses will show up regardless. Give a person the tools to sort and organize those things and they become more civilized. I believe this is the true value of literacy: it is a form of civilizing ourselves. This underlying paradigm -- that words are more effective at communicating our intentions compared to acting out our impulses -- is superior to the alternative.

Maybe this issue is contributing to civil unrest. The increase of illiteracy coincides with the discontent and unrest we're seeing in our times. Democracy does indeed seem like an ineffectual method of improving your life if you don't really believe that discussion and words can bear out the best possible outcome.

Both are sexually explicit, but Peter Gabriel uses intelligent allegory and metaphor where most modern songs are so literal, their spartan lyrics barely elevate themselves above sentient speech. It's certainly one of the reasons why I find most modern music to be quite insufferable, because their verbiage appeals to the lowest common denominator. Either because the artists are barely capable of expressing themselves without flat out resorting to barbaric grunts, or because the producers are too afraid the lyrics might fly above their audience's heads. The same goes for so many video games, where the dialogue is so flat, it barely manages to convey the complexity of the situation the protagonists find themselves in [insert "my face is tired" meme here].

The comparison of lyrics is a great example of the issue. Music should have a certain flirty, magical quality to it. It should engage my imagination, not just describe an idea to me. Poetry follows the same general rule.

I often find myself pausing for a moment in order to reflect on the precise notion that I wish to convey. When it comes to debate, being precise is important, hence why establishing the semantic clarity of a certain notions is anything else but a waste of time. Is it pedantic? Maybe, but how can you expect to have meaningful conversation when participants have vastly differing conceptions about the things they want to talk about? I see words like "respect", "tolerance" and "justice" to be thrown around a lot, but hardly do I ever find people who are actually capable of defining those terms. The end result are people parroting these virtues without truly understanding them.

It's only pedantic if one is wielding "proper grammar" like a club to dismiss another person's argument. "Strange, you misused a word a few paragraphs up. Therefore, how can I trust the argument of an idiot like you?" is pedantic. Failing to make a cogent argument because you don't understand the meaning of the phrases and words you're sputtering is another problem entirely.

 

[Kadayi]

The tools is valuable if you suffer from a learning disorder like dyslexia. That way, you can engage with others and be understood instead of fighting against your own brain to put something into words. I get that. It sounds to me like you're already going back over your work and "prepping" using Grammarly as the assistant, and that's hardly different that proofreading it yourself.

My concern is what happens when people lose the impetus (and then the ability) to proofread their own work and self-reflect upon what is being said. Proper writing is far more than just spelling the word correctly and using good sentence structure. Proper writing requires an understanding of the rules and manipulating them to convey your intentions. If Grammarly paves over everything with a glossy sheen, individual voices lose some color and nuance as a result, even if it is done in the name of "proper" grammar and readability.

My mother teaches remedial students entering community college. Over the years of discussing the topic with her, she emphasizes that most of the literacy problems at that stage of life are because of significant intellectual shortcomings. Not that those students are "stupid", but they lack most of the underlying structure. Asking them to "put something into their own words" or to "come up with an argument and defend it" is something these grown adults cannot grasp (until they are taught, of course). This makes it difficult for them to communicate properly, let alone communicate properly in written form.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these students are not mentally retarded. Rather, they are students who somehow passed through the school system without learning how to properly read and write. When I say "remedial", she is teaching college students the structure of a paragraph, the structure of a sentence, and how to write one-page papers with some sense of focus and conceptualization.

That isn't aimed at you of course. Just thinking more on the topic.

I'm pretty verbose, but in large part, that's because I've read a lot and thus have a decent vocabulary to pull from despite being mildly dyslexic. The grim reality is though that vast swathes of humanity don't do 'reading' unless they have to, and therefore to paraphrase the Manic Street Preachers possess 'just enough education to perform' when it comes to language and the multi-faceted nature of it.

They way I've always looked at things is this. No matter what, our world is defined and agreed upon through words first and foremost to others. The greater your vocabulary the richer your ability to communicate becomes. That's not to say that everyone should aspire to be as wordy as the likes of Will Self, but being able to articulate yourself clearly to others, especially when it comes to abstract concepts is key if you want to be able to get anywhere in life.

 

[Lady Bird]

I find spellchecks useful as Quality of Life tools because humans are prone to mechanical errors very often. Pressing the wrong key, skipping another key while typing fast, etc. Also for tricky spelling, when we don't know if a certain word uses double consonants or not, for example. And to foreigners of any language, spellchecks are also a good tool to learn.

Theoretically, this should save us time, which in turn allows us to focus on the truly important elements of our writing, with less accidental distractions. I know from experience that Microsoft Word's auto-correcting tools fasten my writing.

That being said, as those tools become more sophisticated and convenient, I can certainly see the dangers they can bring on those who rely too much on them.

 

[Ailynn]

"RANKS 'RAMMARLY!"

 

[Catphish]

I get ads for this service called 'Grammarly'. They market it as a "writing assistant" but it's essentially auto-correct on crack. Not only will it correct spelling and basic syntax mistakes, but it will also suggest better words or even phrasing. In the ads, enthusiastic actors talk about how their writing has improved since they've switched on their Grammarly subscription.

I recall learning how to type and edit in computer class many years ago. The teachers told us we couldn't always rely on auto-correct and the right-click 'Thesaurus' option. There were flaws back then -- the system didn't catch misuse of they're/their/there -- so if a student relied on it too heavily, it would show up in their papers.

I have nothing against tools that help me catch typos and mistakes in my phrasing. However, I think that tools like Grammarly may end up making us significantly dumber.

The ability to formulate thoughts and "think for yourself" is an important function for every human. Auto-correct is a helpful tool, but it isn't a substitute for actual content, actual thought.

If the machines get smart enough to take what you hastily typed on an iPhone screen and turn it into something understandable, that seems convenient, agreed? What if this comes at the cost of brainpower, though? What if we are stunting our brains by relying more and more on auto-correct as time goes on?

The idea isn't too incredulous. We've researched the link between intelligence and vocabulary for decades, both in adults as well as children.

There's also this study, indicating that the way you navigate a 3D space in a videogame may grow or shrink your hippocampus. The reason is interesting: if you navigate the 3D world using traditional spacial orientation (such as making note of buildings, estimating your path using moutains, rivers, etc) the grey matter increases. However, if you navigate the 3D world using "non-spacial" strategies such as following directions, moving toward a waypoint, and using an automated compass it can shrink grey matter in this area of the brain.

Plenty of surveys, articles, and studies have demonstrated that spelling, vocabulary, and grammar are linked to intelligence. Neglecting these soft skills results in a decrease of your brain-matter in relevant areas of your noggin'.

All this is to say that the way we use technology can have a positive or a negative effect on our brains.

Written communication already puts us at a disadvantage when trying to convey something to another person. We have to infer tone, intention, and value through our words in lieu of body language and verbal cues. If everyone has a tool instructing them how to say something, then written communication becomes more difficult to read. Everything becomes a cookie-cutter, auto-corrected blur.

Worse, I can't trust the intention of what I am reading. Did the person intend to say "without any consideration" or did Grammarly insert that phrase on their behalf? I go by the rule that if you don't understand the meaning of a word, you shouldn't use it. Otherwise, our communication becomes fuzzy and meaningless instead of sharp and well-intentioned.

The result is the email may read nicely, but you could have a dullard on the other end of the keyboard.

Writing is one matter. Reading is another. These two practices are joined at the hip and blur together upon close examination. Is illiteracy a writing issue or a reading issue? It's both. If you need a digital "writing assistant" to insert a nice-sounding word that you don't understand, you certainly won't grasp that word when reading it in an article or in a book. Reliance on such tools robs you of the chance to learn a new word or phrase for yourself. As a bonus, your brain grows a tiny bit to accommodate the new slice of knowledge.

Free tip from this lit nerd: never pass up the chance to learn a new word. If you encounter one in a book, investigate it. Don't gloss over it because the meaning of the passage may be lost without the nuance of that word. The ability to read matters:

A study comparing the neuropsychological abilities of illiterate subjects to schooled subjects across a wide age range (16 - 85 years), found that illiteracy affected many other cognitive abilities outside of reading and writing.

Results indicated a significant educational effect on most of the tests. Largest educational effect was noted in constructional abilities (copying of a figure), language (comprehension), phonological verbal fluency, and conceptual functions (similarities, calculation abilities, and sequences). Aging effect was noted in visuoperceptual (visual detection) and memory scores. In the first subject sample, it was evident that, despite using such limited educational range (from 0–4 years of formal education), and such a wide age range (from 16–85 years), schooling represented a stronger variable than age. ​

Study source. Bolded emphasis mine.

---

Do you use these tools and think I'm off my old-man rocker?
Do you have experience that validates or contradicts the idea that Grammarly (and similar tools) makes us dumber?
Do you have annoying co-workers who can't type for shit?
Did you read that whole thing? Bravo!

 

[Hobbesian]

I was motivated by Malcom X to read the dictionary/thesaurus when I was kid. It's something I've essentially done all my life. I don't do it as diligently as I used to simply because I needed to spread my wings a bit more in terms of stimulation - but I consider myself a bonafide lexiphilic. I just love the sound of words (I rap). I carry a dictionary everywhere.

I considered every word a terse summation of a concept.. I figured the more words I intimately knew, the more stuff I would know. I obviously wasn't entirely right, but I wasn't entirely wrong either.

I used to get a ton of shit for being too "verbose" on forums - this one in particular. I'd often use forum posts as a grounds for reinforcing any words that I might have learned recently - something I still do, but, again, just not as often. It was really fucking infuriating having threads constantly derailed anytime I posted just because people couldn't get over the fact that I liked to try and maximize the language - as though there were something intrinsically wrong with that. People would always throw around gossamer insults like "pretentious" and "try hard" - because everything is always about the potential audience and not about self-actualization. I always saw it as staunchly anti-intellectual and a symptom of a larger anti-intellectual strain in society.

I hate the idea of language being "streamlined" and becoming simpler in an effort to make "communication more efficient". I know there's a time and a place for verbosity and there's always simpler ways to convey intended messages to the layman, but the idea that great words can go out of vogue or disappear completely due to a lack of usage irritates the shit out of me and isn't something that I personally want to contribute to. So I've stubbornly decided to be one the few lone posts standing against rushing rapids of change. Fuck it.

This is kinda rambly but fuck Grammarly. I agree with the OP.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I was motivated by Malcom X to read the dictionary/thesaurus when I was kid. It's something I've essentially done all my life. I don't do it as diligently as I used to simply because I needed to spread my wings a bit more in terms of stimulation - but I consider myself a bonafide lexiphilic. I just love the sound of words (I rap). I carry a dictionary everywhere.

I considered every word a terse summation of a concept.. I figured the more words I intimately knew, the more stuff I would know. I obviously wasn't entirely right, but I wasn't entirely wrong either.

I used to get a ton of shit for being too "verbose" on forums - this one in particular. I'd often use forum posts as a grounds for reinforcing any words that I might have learned recently - something I still do, but, again, just not as often. It was really fucking infuriating having threads constantly derailed anytime I posted just because people couldn't get over the fact that I liked to try and maximize the language - as though there were something intrinsically wrong with that. People would always throw around gossamer insults like "pretentious" and "try hard" - because everything is always about the potential audience and not about self-actualization. I always saw it as staunchly anti-intellectual and a symptom of a larger anti-intellectual strain in society.

I hate the idea of language being "streamlined" and becoming simpler in an effort to make "communication more efficient". I know there's a time and a place for verbosity and there's always simpler ways to convey intended messages to the layman, but the idea that great words can go out of vogue or disappear completely due to a lack of usage irritates the shit out of me and isn't something that I personally want to contribute to. So I've stubbornly decided to be one the few lone posts standing against rushing rapids of change. Fuck it.

This is kinda rambly but fuck Grammarly. I agree with the OP.

It's encouraging to see others who share the same illness interest of reading words from the dictionary.

"Streamlined language" offers a lot of utility in everyday life, but like any tool it has to be used appropriately. A brief text to tell my wife I picked up milk and eggs? No need for eloquence. But if texting becomes our main method of communication, there are other problems going on.

Shouldn't a conversation be an exchange? Text and slack and email are great ways to print your ideas, but there's very little back-and-forth. Instead of reacting to what the other person is saying, you're calculating what you want to say next and the briefest way to say it. Conversation turned into a rather narcissistic exercise.

Regarding "everything is always about the potential audience" versus "self-actualization", that is one of the chief reasons as to why I write.

 

[hariseldon]

First things first, thank you DunDunDunpachi , strange headache , H Hobbesian and Kadayi for some excellent posts in this thread - honestly it's stuff like this that makes me consider this forum a place to call home (and if I wasn't skint [god damn house and god damn mortgage] I'd get the gold membership to make my point - I'll get there eventually).

Anyway, to business. I've long viewed language as both incredibly important and incredibly fascinating. Human thought is both defined by and constrained by language. We think mostly in words, perhaps in shapes, colours, smells, tastes, emotions and sounds too, but mostly words. Almost all our complex thought processes take place in a world of words. As others have alluded to, each word comes loaded with meaning beyond its simple dictionary definition, based on centuries of usage, and upon definitions that different groups may give those words.

I agree with posts observing the decay in modern use of language, though I will just observe that while one can compare the horrors of Jennifer Lopez to Peter Gabriel, one could equally compare The Beatles (see video 1) with Everything Everything (see video 2) to point the other way. Of course truthfully that's just me being an awkward git. Isolated examples aren't hugely relevant, but I'd imagine a proper study of content would be quite tricky given the small number of words in a 4 minute song, the relatively larger number of words in rap vs a ballad, and the small matter of how one would grade the quality of a word (given it seems common in rap to just make up a word by changing an existing word so it rhymes, fo shizzle my nizzle).

Screens have done a certain level of harm, we all know that reading from paper places less strain on the eye than a screen. I would add that usability experts have done their bit too, telling designers of online services to make those services easier to use, and that a high word-count reduces this usability. That ease-of-use has in the end become dumbing down. The biggest problem however has been the mobile phone. One cannot have a meaningful conversation on such a miniscule display with a diminutive non-tactile keyboard.

When posting here on a computer, my posts are longer, because on a computer I can have two windows open, one with the thing(s) I'm replying to, one with notepad, with plenty of space to type, and I'm using a keyboard upon which it is comfortable to type quickly, transferring my thoughts to screen efficiently. On a phone I have to deal with the incessantly useless auto-correct, I can't see much of what I'm typing, let alone what I'm replying to, and I can only have one thing open at a time so I can't pull content from multiple sources in an easy and intuitive way, or check a word in a dictionary before using it, or fact-check easily in a separate window, etc.

Social networks have also dulled the synapses. People no longer email each other, individual to individual, with the chance at long-form conversation and deep discussion. Instead we post on each other's walls or comment on posts in tiny spaces not suited to long-form discussion. This becoming the dominant means of communication limits peoples thinking. I have actually noticed that if I use facebook too much my programming skills take a dive, because my brain stops being able to cope with longer tasks. When I read more books my brain works more efficiently. It's not particularly scientific (anecdotes rarely are) but I'd hazard a guess that it's not a million miles from the truth for other people.

H Hobbesian alludes to anti-intellectualism and I think that's something that's always been, at least for the duration of my time on earth, but I suspect it has become more of a problem in recent times than in the past. One of the things fueling this however may be the dishonesty of intellectuals themselves, given the current state of peer-review in scientific journals, thought-policing in universities, funding only being available if one agrees to particular world-views, etc such that perhaps people don't trust intellectuals anymore (see Brexit - it is commonly stated that the remain campaign failed because the British people had rather had enough of experts - one could however argue that the homogenity of those experts had been seen and their view of the present found to conflict with reality due to the ivory towers they inhabited).

Back to words themselves for a moment, they do have power, they have weight, and controlling words enables one to control thought and debates. Control the meaning of words and suddenly texts written with one intended meaning acquire a different one (see racism and the power+ definition). We must carefully guard against those who would police our use of words, as well as those who would distort their meaning. Allow them to develop new words by all means, but don't let them force their definitions of words upon you, lest you find that four legs are good, but two legs are better.

Video 1


Video 2


PS apologies for a bit of a skim through issues - at some point I would like to post something in more depth as I wasn't able to really explore the issues in full in this post due to time constraints.

 

[hariseldon]

Kadayi re just enough education to perform.. when I read that I had a feeling it was the wrong Welsh band, could have sworn it was the Stereophonics, turns out I was right. Love the manics, seen them 4 times live and they're amazing every time. Sorry for the off-topic...