I’m not sure I’d trust someone who reads like a 11/12 yo with signing potentially life changing (not in a good way) contracts.
Comment on New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
what's the concrete advantage of the average person reading at a high level is, past some sort of weird elitism?
they clearly haven't needed the skill in their lives, or their reading level wouldn't have "atrophied" over time, so what's the point?
i also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised
Shapillon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
I don't care how good your reading level is: unless you've studied law, you shouldn't trust anybody but a lawyer to correctly parse a life-changing contract.
KevonLooney@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Do you think lawyers are supergeniuses who’ve memorized every law and case file? Maybe ones who charge $750 to take a dump, but not the lawyer you’re talking to.
Usually the basic contract lawyer you talk with has seen your issue a few times before and just looks it up online for more details. Or they just wing it. They’re a second opinion who may or may not be valuable, depending on how much research you’ve done.
Bizarroland@kbin.social 8 months ago
And lawyers tend to talk to other lawyers so they have insider knowledge and a familiarity with contracts that typically helps them spot incongruities quicker.
darq@kbin.social 8 months ago
Poorly educated people are more susceptible to manipulation, misinformation, and propaganda. And a low reading level is both an indication of a poor educational level, and an impediment to a person educating themselves further.
Reading is a fundamental skill in the modern world.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
Clearly reading above a 6th-grade level isn't a fundamental skill in the modern world, or 54% of American adults wouldn't be able to function in it.
Being able to parse a long sentence filled with long words has absolutely no bearing on your susceptibility to propaganda.
darq@kbin.social 8 months ago
Clearly reading above a 6th-grade level isn't a fundamental skill in the modern world, or 54% of American adults wouldn't be able to function in it.
No. I don't consider those adults to be "functioning" at an appropriate level.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s not a direct cause and effect between better reading and propaganda resilience, it’s an enabler hence gets reflected as “probability of”, not as a certainty.
The more effective you are at taking in information and gaining understanding through reading, if you actually use it often, the more you know (both in terms of contextual knowlege around various subjects and other things you read on that subject hence have references to compare new information about it) so the more resilient you are to propaganda (for example: some things are only obviously illogical if you know enough about the context to see that they can’t happen there).
Being good at reading doesn’t make people resilient to propaganda directly, it makes it more likely that they are resilient to propaganda because it’s easier for them to acquire broader and deeper knowledge so many do, whilst many who would otherwise tend to seek broader knowledge give up because their level of reading makes it a much harder task.
This is also why reading level isn’t an elitist thing: bright curious people no matter their origin will go much farther if they have better tools to acquire knowledge and understand it, and the fastest most effective way to provide a lot of those tools to them is schooling, so if they don’t have them it’s probably not their fault.
IHeartBadCode@kbin.social 8 months ago
what's the concrete advantage of the average person reading at a high level is
Sixth grade reading is being able to extract information from written word. Below that grade level, you're basically reading words but none of them need to have logical impact on some greater theme or topic. Sixth grade reading level is the ability to read things that matter. Eighth grade reading is reading at a level where you can apply introspection to the underlying theme or topic that's being extracted from the written word.
So, and this is simply my opinion, I believe it is important to be able to read things and understand how they apply to one's self in a logical manner. The ability to extract the impact that the particular piece has is critical to subsequently applying that introspective quality to the piece. So, yes, I believe being able to read at sixth grade level is incredibly important. It is difficult to understand how something applies to you if you cannot correctly extract what the point that is being discussed, actually is, in the first place.
they clearly haven't needed the skill in their lives
Well a lot of everyday life is not present in those terms. Your employer does not sit there and go "this machine is big enough to stick a arm into it and applies enough pressure to remove that arm from your body" without also following it up with "so do not stick your arm into this machine." In fact, legal requirements likely dictate a "DO NOT STICK ARM INTO MACHINE" or something similar sign right beside the machine.
There is a massive difference between the utility as a function of labor and employment and utility as a function of operating within a society. So do try to apply this at say a social level. Employers can change the condition of the environment one works in to accommodate a lot of leeway. So do try to think of it less in "what does this higher reading level provide in objective utility in a work environment?"
i also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised
Well that is interesting that you bring that up because rote memorization of multiplication is third grade level stuff. Things like "all things multiplied by two are even" is higher grade thinking. There is actually a point where you stop thinking of multiplication as some table to be memorized and start seeing it as a pattern that has deeper meaning.
If I add a zero to the end of a number, "3 to 30 or 45 to 450" I have multiplied that by 10, and that has a deeper meaning all over in various engineering domain. In computer terms we call that bit shifting and there's optimizations in rendering pipelines and memory access that comes from this deeper understanding of multiplication. Or things like (x,y) coordinates, it is easy to just think of it as plotting point on a grid, but at some point you obtain a deeper meaning and start seeing (x,y) as (r,θ) and you begin to have an understanding of vectors and that understanding is critical to literally everything that might have to traverse your GPU. Want to change the heading of an airplane? You can do vector addition to know exactly what will happen when you change that heading.
And even then you stop seeing exactness of math and start seeing the general patterns of it. You begin to understand this kind of change in this variable has this kind of effect. And you can pick that kind of feeling up with on the job training no doubt. But with a deeper understanding of math you begin to understand more than what on the job training can give you, because you can break those actions down into more mathematical terms that can be manipulated easily within your mind, rather than the good old trail and error method (which obviously wouldn't be a good method for an airplane that you are currently flying).
There is also more to it that the surface level implications of education. Yes, we can just look at the surface level stuff and conclude that the "real" world reigns supreme. But having that deeper understanding, be it in written word or mathematical eloquence, gives us a richer understanding of the world we live in. Gives us more access to the potential of this world. We do per se "need it", much like we don't pre se need things like medicine, refrigerators, guns, bulldozers, and what not. Our ancestors did without them for countless years. But having that deeper meaning gives us access to things that we would otherwise not have. This nice world we have of comfort is not a product of it being forced upon us, it is a side result of various people who went further than the surface level understanding of this world that was routinely offered.
So if you are curious of the advantage, look around you. That is the advantage.
Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 8 months ago
This wouldn't be a problem except all of those people who don't read good are allowed to vote.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
This just sounds like weird elitism. What correlation is there between voting and reading at a high level?
Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 8 months ago
I would very much like my fellow voters to be able to read and understand things before making a decision.
In Athens they gave political offices away in a lottery. (Slaves and women excepted, of course.) This meant that because the stupidest person in the city could randomly get the highest office, they had a reason to make sure everybody was at least a little competent.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
What exactly would you like them to read and understand that requires a reading level above 6th grade level?
Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social 8 months ago
At least where I live in the US, voters are asked to vote on city or state ballot proposals. These proposals appear on the ballot in a wall of text. They are also usually available online before election day for interested voters to read. These can be very complicated to parse - not only the language and technical terms in the text, but the policy itself and how it might affect different groups of stakeholders in the community and different existing policies and competing proposals. A voter might need to read a lot of news articles and opinion pieces to get the lay of the land on a particular issue. I think having a higher than sixth grade reading level would be more than helpful in understanding an issue and related ballot proposals.
MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Honestly, we do need some elites to guide us retarded Americans to a higher plane so I’m fine with that.
LarryTheMatador@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
My understanding of the matter is the risk of low literacy can lead people to write things like your exact post. Which is to say to be so dense as to not even understand the benefits of not being dense.
marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
For me personally, it seems like reading comprehension is a pretty necessary skill. Between social media, texting, email, etc we are reading more than ever. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to jump on a call because some colleague has misinterpreted or misrepresented something from an email.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
Media literacy and reading comprehension are important skills, but unless I'm (ironically) mistaken, it doesn't look like they form part of a text's "reading level".
marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Interesting, I never got into the details on “reading level”. Yeah, sounds like this should be used to score readability of text, not someone’s intelligence or education level, as was originally intended. I’ve read many military manuals, and can vouch for their ease of reading, so thanks to DoD for making that a requirement.
“Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss comes close, averaging 5.7 words per sentence and 1.02 syllables per word, with a grade level of −1.3.”
I just find that funny.
Hyperreality@kbin.social 8 months ago
the average person reading at a high level is, past some sort of weird elitism?
An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for the survival of a free people.
People who can't read well, can't easily learn further skills, fact check, do proper research, and invariably lack the ability to do proper critical thinking.
The end result is gullible stupid people, making stupid decisions. People who think research involves watching youtube/tiktok videos.
also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised
I don't think memorising multiplication tables is a thing anymore, but if you can't do basic calculations, you're an easy mark for many businesses.
Teaching people to read, write, and do basic maths is about making them self-reliant.
the_q@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wow…
Bipta@kbin.social 8 months ago
You can vote for non-wolves and prevent destroying the planet.
I agree it's not necessary for immediate survival, but long term.
theneverfox@pawb.social 8 months ago
Reading at an xx level isn’t about using fancy words, it’s about reading comprehension. English is a super ambiguous language…
Case in point, the first half of my post is probably about a 6th grade reading level. A fourth grade reader would probably know all the words but struggle to understand my point, a sixth grade reader would understand I’m saying that reading level is important to correctly understand the meaning, and a college level reader would understand that plus understand the implication that English is a poorly designed language that was shaped to promote intellectual elitism
And now I’m just going to spell out the fact that humans communicate at a steady rate through spoken word regardless of sounds per minute - “dumber” people don’t necessarily express less using slang or simple word choices, they just miss out on the full meaning
I could explain all this so anyone who can tie their shoes could understand all of this, but a high enough reading comprehension means I could have stopped at the first paragraph and all of the meaning would have gotten across… Being a charitable reader is a big part of the equation, as is a certain level of general knowledge
SCB@lemmy.world 8 months ago
People who don’t read well, or often, literally think less effectively than people who do.
Reading isn’t just a hobby for nerds, it’s critical to advancing your own ability to think above an animal level.
There’s a reason all of the smartest people you know read and the dumbest people you know do not.
SeducingCamel@lemm.ee 8 months ago
High reading level shouldn’t be elitist, we should strive to have a well educated population
Bipta@kbin.social 8 months ago
It's really weird to call a 7th grade reading level or better elitism in the first place, and calling it "weird elitism" is even worse.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
should be pretty easy to provide a tangible benefit, then
Aqarius@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sure: being able to tell the author of the text is lying to you.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
You don't want a well-educated population for the sake of having a well-educated population. You want it so that you can have a productive population. And clearly, a high reading level isn't required to be a productive member of society since otherwise reading level wouldn't drop over time like this figure is implying.
MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sorry to say but society works by hierarchies, some people deserve more than others.
the_q@lemmy.world 8 months ago
No they don’t.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 8 months ago
this is also elitism
MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That’s… why I agree with it.
SeducingCamel@lemm.ee 8 months ago
And why is that?
SCB@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Because most people are little more than animals, by choice and aren’t worth the effort of trying to help.
I’m all for providing for their basic needs, often against their own voting habits and thus their own desires, but expecting some poor redneck to suddenly be valuable as a person is just insane.