Nicole Ishida on February 4, 2010

I think this is akin to the fear that video would destroy the movie theatre. It may have had an impact for a while but people will come back and create new ways to express themselves in writing – and it won’t be all bad. I am also one of the many thousands (perhaps millions) of people who have become more comfortable with writing due to the availability of these new tools. I have never maintained a journal but now I blog regularly.

John Weiss on February 4, 2010

I share the same concern with kids and their lack of strong communication skills. Frankly, that concern extends to adults as well, but in a broader sense (civility, eye contact, etc). I do agree that online communication has dissolved into soundbites and “me too” agreements.

However, I don’t believe the percentage of blog posts or ratio of blogs to bits (comments, like/dislike, etc) should be the litmus test. Drawing a correlation between lack of online involvement/conversation and lack of communication skills would be a difficult hypothesis to prove.

The decline in online conversations would seem closer tied to lack of interest or time. Other long form conversations that are not public, therefore hard to measure, would be a better bellwether for communication skills (emails, private long posts in Facebook, hallway conversations, school papers, etc).

Matt Whiting on February 4, 2010

Thanks for the comment, Nicole. To use a movie analogy, I would say this thinking is more akin to worrying about never having another Martin Scorsese because people are spending all of their time just passing along links to College Humor shorts.

Of course, that analogy is far from perfect but my concern really isn’t about one type of content replacing another similar type of content (or the location of the content in your example), it is rooted in the fear that people aren’t creating thoughtful content as often as before. I’m glad to read that you now blog regularly. That’s exactly the type of online communication that I think teaches people a lot more about content creation than most “likes” or wall posts.

Matt Krebsbach on February 4, 2010

I share your worry, Matt, regarding the communication skills of the next generation. However, I’m not sure I would consider blogs or other long-form methods of communication to be the marker for communication capability. Both short and long-form communication methods have their place, and I personally can appreciate anyone who can effectively convey a smart concept in 140 characters (a skill I have yet to master). On the flip side, poorly written paragraphs of text can still be utter garbage and I’ve known plenty who write incessantly and yet never improve their ability to communicate a coherent thought.

One of the things that strikes me re: the trend toward short forms of communication is that it’s a facet of the younger generation’s upbringing. They’re the first generation to be brought up with immediate access to everything. Want a meal? Pop it in the microwave. Want to watch a movie? It’s on demand. Need to talk to a friend? Whip out your mobile phone on your way between classes in junior high. Too many in the younger generation no longer have a concept of waiting for something and, more importantly, having to do any real work to achieve a result. It’s all about instant gratification.

The problem I see in this is that the desire for instant gratification can stifle curiosity, a desire to learn by trying and, if you want to take it far enough, the innovative spirit. Here’s a simple example: if you give a project to someone, is their first action to ask you how to do it, or to go off and try to figure it out on their own and then come back with smart questions?

Personally, I would love to see teens and young adults show better ability to write effectively when it comes to anything longer than an SMS-sized snippet. That said, I guess I’m willing to allow certain evolutions in written communication as long as it’s evident that how one writes hasn’t also made them apathetic.

Joe McCarthy on February 4, 2010

I share many of the concerns articulated in the post and comments.

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post about Self-Reflection vs. Self-Expression, prompted by an article by Sherry Turkle on “Living Online: I’ll Have to Ask My Friends”. As I noted in that post:

According to Turkle, the increasing prevalence of talk culture, wherein “people share the feeling to see if they have the feeling”, comes at the expense of introspection and probing more deeply into complex thoughts and emotions. Questioning society’s tendency toward breathless techno-enthusiasm, with the increasing means available to quickly communicate our state, she champions self-reflection: “having an emotion, experiencing it, taking one’s time to think it through and understand it, but only sometimes electing to share it.”

Turkle was one of several provocative people interviewed in PBS Frontline’s Digital Nation earlier this week corroborated some of these concerns, and yet as so often happens on Frontline, I was left with more questions than answers (!). They provided ample evidence that the desire for instant gratification is on the rise … but it’s not clear that this is a bad thing (e.g., that it stifles creativity).

In a segment called Do Books Have a Future?, Marc Prensky, author of “Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning”, raises a number of questions about the value of the written word [I also highly recommend considering his views on Education 2.0. In another segment, someone notes that when books first came on the scene, something was lost (memorization capabilities, oral traditions), and that something will be lost if / when books are no longer in vogue, but that this may not be a bad thing, all in all, as something will surely be gained. I found myself reflecting on my challenges in trying to read Olde English books, and wondering if a more modern translation / representation of classic wisdom isn’t more palatable / digestible.

Another article I read today from BBC reported on the counterintuitive results of a study that shows that Phone texting ‘helps pupils to spell’.

So, while I share many of the concerns articulated in this post and in the comments, I am curious to learn more about what the changes in preferences and communication styles (and lengths) will mean.

T.J. Anderson on February 4, 2010

Although after having moved to houston and reading the horrible grammer with which the youth write here I do share your concern a little more, but not entirely at all. Coming from a barely pre-social media generation (myspace came out when I was 21). I started a website (if you can call geocities that) before that and used it extremely haphazardly. Comminication evolves to fit the needs of the communicator, often becoming easier. I think we should be excited that our children have the opportunity to interact with whatever social demographic they choose too. When I was in elementary school we had pen pals, and because mail took so long, we got maybe two to three letters a year. I think a blog is more ambitious than we should be expecting from youth of today. Social Networking sites provide a more exact service of what previous generations were really looking for.

But this is a very interesting, and well stated point.