Comment on New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels

• darq@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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.

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  • Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    cool we're back to elitism

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    • darq@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Maybe you should try reading what people are writing instead of falling back on strawmen.

      I do not believe people who cannot read at an adult level are able to access and understand the information and knowledge they need to navigate the world effectively. And that makes them vulnerable.

      That's not elitism.

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      • Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        You're saying that, in your personal judgement, the average US citizen isn't navigating life as effectively as you deem they should be able to.

        That really sounds like elitism to me.

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      • DessertStorms@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        No, that's ableism.

        https://web.archive.org/web/20230605065733/https://ollibean.com/intelligence-is-an-ableist-concept/

        https://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/23/ableist-word-profile-intelligence/

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    • DessertStorms@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Not just elitism, either
      https://medium.com/no-prescription-needed/grammar-the-worlds-most-under-recognized-social-construct-a54e096ecc9c

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• Aceticon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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.

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