Simple Words
They say humans are getting dumber, all this technology is actually reducing the amount of brain power we use. There is less critical thinking in daily life. By they, I mean behavioral scientists in a dull depressing office somewhere on a university. There are just as many others who claim we're only scratching the surface of our brain and the best is yet to come. I'm fucked if I know which dorky dudes are right, so I'm collecting my own evidence along the way.
Text messaging is absolutely a dumbing tech if you ask me. No argument would convince me otherwise. I do it all the time but it's mostly a utility for me. Texting while driving is a major pet peeve of mine, proof humans are still mostly stupid. I suppose Facebook can be both dumbing and expanding to our mind, depending on how you use it. I'm not a huge 'liker' or 'sharer' and I don't use joke news feeds. Other people post enough of that shit.
I've read some wise words written by ordinary people on Facebook, thought provoking, insightful, offering a point of view I'm sometimes familiar with or totally foreign to. You never know what you're going to get. On occasion I will write a gem of my own. It's usually just one sentence, or maybe a fragment, mixed in a long winded ramble on this blog or on Facebook. Every once in a while the perfect words come out that convey a feeling, and you know you've nailed it.
I make it my mission to text in full words and sentences, punctuation and all. The text shorthand is not making us smarter. Now I see young people bringing that shit into Facebook. OMG. For some people texting has become their default writing structure. Along with texting while driving (TWD), texting while writing should be illegal.
I can assure you, I am never rolling on the floor laughing my ass off out loud at a Facebook post or text message. I laugh but remain in my chair.
I'm far from perfect. My tools are limited by my life experience, but I try my best to write well with the words and style I know. I keep it mostly simple, my vocabulary and grammar are prosaic, but I scribe forward because I enjoy writing. The venue just keeps changing, blogs, social media, comment boards on news sites, email, and when I ponder this I wonder how many words I write per week. I could have written a fucking book by now.
This blog has suffered greatly at the hands of Facebook. I miss writing here but most everyone I know is over there. It's just how things played out online. I've been doing this so long, since 1992 on Prodigy.
There is one certain way people are not getting dumber. Our social circle at home is local. limited and sometimes lacking. This technology has afforded us the opportunity to meet people you never would have met if you were both born decades prior. I have no idea how many electronic souls I've connected with in two decades on the internet.
This concludes my Friday night sermon. Keep writing. May your best day be the day ahead of you.