The New York Times ran an article last week on the changing face of literacy in the digital age. The column focuses primarily on the habits of teenagers, college-bound students, and how the Internet is impacting their reading.
Clearly students are developing a different set of skills than they would by reading novels, but it seems odd to hear some arguing for a new assessment of abilities when you consider the material. While a typical high school book (Candid, for example) might have an average readability level of 12.8 (with some chapters spiking at 15.3), this article’s primary subject — Nadia Konyk — comments on her love of reading sites like fanfiction.net, which boasts a 6.3 Flesch-Kincaid Grade (about the same as a TV Guide).
What I find even more troubling is the fallout from the lack of challenging contextualization that comes with reading Internet sites, which results in a lack of critical thinking even when attempting to distinguish the validity of discreet pieces of information.
Web readers are persistently weak at judging whether information is trustworthy. In one study, Donald J. Leu, who researches literacy and technology at the University of Connecticut, asked 48 students to look at a spoof Web site (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) about a mythical species known as the “Pacific Northwest tree octopus.” Nearly 90 percent of them missed the joke and deemed the site a reliable source.
Despite my profession’s attempts to teach students how to judge authoritative from non-authoritative sites, the majority of students are still unable to distinguish between the two. The worst example I’ve seen recently came when a young college graduate submitted a writing sample (for a job) that included a citation from a White Supremacists’ website.†
Obviously, this is a single anecdote, though it’s something I saw regularly when I was still working as an academic librarian. In essence, the problem isn’t that students don’t read at all, it’s what and how they read that’s creating an impact on other factors, such as how they reason, think, and evaluate information.
Thanks to Kristen for pointing me to said article.
† Now couple that with “where” I work.
It’s a scary notion, the idea that “information democracy” is making children more gullible. Questioning authority is a pretty important survival skill.
poor felipe…his car has let him down so many times this season. atleast kimi got some points.
now back to what ever you were talking about above.
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