The Dumbing Down of America
The Dumbing Down of America:
This dumbing down of the people continues to this day. The average level of literacy of adult Americans in the 2003 Adult Literacy Survey of the U.S. Department of Education was exactly the same as in 1992. That may sound not too bad –at least there was no decline. Yet over that 11 years, the average amount of education received by Americans rose. At any given level of educational attainment, literacy declined. Only because Americans in 2003 had more years of schooling on average did we prevent an overall decline in literacy.
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I think this is because television watching went up and book reading went down…
1 comment
Television is simply readable. My husband and I spend time reading Discovery and other education channels. Not to mention BBC. We are reading constantly, since, we don’t wish to interpret what they are saying. It is better reporting if you “see” the meaning, as opposed to assuming what is being said. Forgan, Oklahoma (choice of retirement area)
We’ve lived 32 years on the coast of Oregon. Beautiful place and people. I feel as though I stepped backward some 40 years here. Although, most people here have a computer. The basic computer skills are elementary. They are kind and interested. Polite as though they wree Quakers from old America. It seems that TV is only used for child-attention getting. Few books are offered at bedtime, it is true. I’d simply turn off the TV sound and have them read ‘closed caption’ only. K.