7 ms·

It’s reasonable to assume that 11% of the adult US population is still illiterate [1]. I know this is not unique to the US, and that these people may very well

It’s reasonable to assume that 11% of the adult US population is still illiterate [1]. I know this is not unique to the US, and that these people may very well be as happy as anyone else. Still, if we sometimes point out that HN is a bit of a bubble, well there’s a big bubble I can’t wrap my mind around well into the 21st century! I would certainly be surprised if an illiterate person made heavy use of the Internet (though I’m sure there are edge cases, as always). [1] https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp

pnloyd 8y ago
A lot of jobs now have internet only application processes.
- hackujin 8y ago
  A lot of jobs require literacy and a phone number.
- DavidAdams 8y ago
  This is just one of many reasons why public libraries are so important. It's a major part of the mandate for modern libraries and librarians to offer a place where people with low incomes, low educational attainment, low tech literacy, and even plain old low literacy can get some help navigating occasional requirements like an online job application or trying to enroll in some kind of assistance program.
  - KC8ZKF 8y ago
    My local library in $SMALL_MIDWEST_TOWN lends Verizon portable hotspots for free.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    More than libraries, I wish there would be really affordable computers. We’ve already proven it’s technically possible, with Raspberry Pis and cheap Android phones. Now I wish we would stop cramming bloat and shit (like useless JavaScript and ads) into our websites and operating systems so those low-end machines actually remain usable and productive. Internet access should also be a right - not high speed 100+Mbps, but basic 1Mbps or so. The unused cell network capacity should be given away for free so that less fortunate people can still get online.
    - jlmorton 8y ago
      You can get a Samsung Chromebook for $75. The FCC operates the Lifeline program, which provides subsidized Internet access to low-income Americans, but the program was gutted about three months ago, dropping about 70% of enrollees.
      - austinheap 8y ago
        We just made America Great Again by freeing up that cluttered frequency for more important snaps. /s
      - Fnoord 8y ago
        There's also a second hand surplus of old technology. They may have wear & tear and other disadvantages though compared to today's standards: slower CPU, slower IO, less RAM, HDD instead of SSD, dead pixels, (half) dead batteries just to mention a few but hey its an option.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Yup. This is yet another forgotten aspect of software bloat - as it continues, it makes dirt-cheap computing unfeasible, because by the time you get e.g. something like Raspberry Pi, it's already too weak to run software/websites you'll encounter daily. I get that world isn't fair and poor people keep getting the short end of the stick, but in this case - software bloat - it's really mostly just aggregate of individual choices. So for cryin' out loud, be a little more lean with frameworks and libraries you use. Treat it as if it was charity contribution, if you have to, because in a sense, it is.
    - pmlnr 8y ago
      Used thinkpads on ebay.
    - picsao 8y ago
      If the world could opt out of bloat.. the ad industry would be gone.
tpfour 8y ago
For your interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy
- ggregoire 8y ago
  Half of the Italian population is functionally illiterate? What?
  - gcatalfamo 8y ago
    Yep. Italian here, Can confirm.
    - adpirz 8y ago
      Can you explain why? And does that manifest on a daily level?
      - eksemplar 8y ago
        Look at their governments over the pas 25 years, I mean, they may not seem that crazy compared to Trump, but they’ve been, and continue to be, really shitty. It turns out that uneducated people make really uninformed decisions and as a result, it’s tanked their economy and exploded corruption.
      - piva00 8y ago
        I can give you my anecdote from Brazil: there are people of my age (25-35) that have been through basic education (quite a big chunk of them through high school even) that can't express themselves, that can't do basic arithmetic most of the times. It manifests in a lot of ways on a daily level, from people who can't explain what exactly they want from a store, from a hospital. Communication breaks down easily so they are used to be shouting all the time when talking to try to get a point across, etc.
      - dkarl 8y ago
        For an American anecdote, my father taught at a small rural public university, and he encountered students who were functionally illiterate every year. They were almost always from small rural schools. In a larger school, a kid who couldn't read would have had difficulty passing classes, received remedial instruction, been assessed for intellectual disabilities, and so on. Unless they had extremely serious behavioral problems or congenital intellectual disabilities, or they dropped out of the system entirely, they would learn to read! In a school system that is smaller, less impersonal, without extra programs and resources for a teacher to fall back on, it's really hard to label a kid a failure and deny him a diploma just because he's falling behind academically and the unsupported, often barely trained teacher can't get him up to speed. Especially in a small community with lots of illiterate people working and earning a living, it's hard to justify stigmatizing a kid that way and denying him an essential part of a normal American life, namely to go through school with his peers and have all the normal school experiences. So kids get passed along from grade to grade and then (why should 12th grade be different?) they get a diploma. There was also, I think, a kind of naive view that intelligence was a pretty broad spectrum and a lot of kids were naturally going to end up illiterate. This was understandable if your point of view was restricted entirely to a small rural area where a small but significant number of adults were illiterate. It just seemed natural for some people not to take to reading, and that was just a normal part of life, not something a person should be punished for. (Most teachers had a much more progressive and modern understanding, and I really don't want to overstate the prevalence of this view, but a handful of teachers here and there is enough to produce a steady trickle of children falling through the cracks.) Another factor was that there was not a uniform understanding of the purpose of high school and college credentials. Most people accepted the notion that a diploma should guarantee a minimal set of skills — functional literacy included. They valued the education and skills that their children were getting. Occasionally another feeling showed through, though, which was that educational credentials were a way of granting life success to some people and denying it to others, and requiring kids to succeed academically in school was just a way to perpetuate class and racial distinctions. This sentiment came to the fore when my state adopted a minimum skills test that kids needed to pass in order to get a diploma. This test was labeled "evil" by some people in my community because it pointlessly (in their eyes) denied their kids a chance for a normal life. They felt no anger or anxiety about the fact that their kids struggled with reading to the point where they couldn't pass a state basic skills test. They were only angry about their kids being denied an important life credential. And with Jared Kushner getting a Harvard diploma, you can't say it was entirely a made-up concern, even if they did adopt a counterproductive attitude towards their kids' education because of it.
LyndsySimon 8y ago
It’s surprising how well young children use the internet, pre-literacy. My 4-year-old asks Google questions all the time on her laptop, and gets answer most of the time.
- Andrex 8y ago
  There are many other factors for this, but the primary one is how much Google has invested in making that the case. Start them young.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    And then later they learn the privacy repercussions. Plus earning money on 4 year olds? If its via advertising its shady. There's code of conduct here that commercials for under 12 aren't allowed (so they target the parents instead, yay). I'll be teaching my kid to learn to go for the duck instead.
- NotCamelCase 8y ago
  I chuckle every time I remember that when my dad used to interview secretaries to hire ~20 yrs ago, he'd always ask "Can you use computer?" which sounds like a quite funny question to ask a 20-something years old person nowadays, let alone kids.
  - Bromskloss 8y ago
    By the way, I used to think that in the future, when people have had computers already from childhood, everyone would know their way around them really well and be advanced users who know programming and what not. That did not happen.
    - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
      I would expect that the average computer/smart phone user in 2018 is much less computer-literate than the average computer user in 1998. You don't have to know anything about computers to use them now. I would expect for most non-technical users, the computer consists of the web browser, and maybe Microsoft Office and a few games and that's it. It's good that you don't have to know how a computer works to use it, but there are lots of downsides to that as well.
EGreg 8y ago
If literacy involves writing, then most kids are illiterate. Remember the three R’s? Now it’s down to two. Well, maybe one (American kids have long been using calculators). But a deeper question is, what do we actually lose if people can’t write by hand or do arithmetic?
- pmiller2 8y ago
  Writing typically refers to composition, not penmanship. I’m not actually sure penmanship has suffered much from ubiquitous computing. It would be interesting to do a study on it.
  - PeCaN 8y ago
    > I’m not actually sure penmanship has suffered much from ubiquitous computing. It certainly has in Japan and China, but I'm not sure that extrapolates to simpler writing systems. I suspect it partially does due to schools spending less time teaching handwriting.
    - aikinai 8y ago
      Recall is definitely down, but don’t think penmanship has changed (at least in Japan). If anything wouldn’t it get better in a sense, since you write so rarely and develop less shortcuts which might be more efficient but less formal/elegant?
  - mjevans 8y ago
    Depends what you want out of kids. I can tell you how to NOT do it. Don't start with block lettering for all of pre and grade school, then switch to ONLY cursive for 3 years... now I can't write anything nicely. It's still readable, more so to me. As for actual composition, don't force kids in to a rigid structure all the time. Maybe they've changed that too. It took me years to write in a more free form.
    - krageon 8y ago
      I had only cursive for my entire first twelve years of school, then slowly switched to block letters. My handwriting is really nice, but I don't think it had much to do with my school(s). I can't really glean from your comment why you think the kind of writing you are taught has anything to do with the kind of writing you use now.
aacook 8y ago
Maybe they make up some part of the 11% but I imagine age is a big factor. The old folks I know who don't use the Internet are some of the most well-read, whip-smart people I've met.
r_singh 8y ago
Here in India—guards, drivers and house helps are all on the Internet all day long!
- pandasun 8y ago
  What do those jobs have to do with illiteracy?
  - regnarg 8y ago
    You don't need to be literate to do those jobs and so chances are, a lot of people doing those jobs are illiterate.
    - pandasun 8y ago
      You don't need to be, so therefore you aren't? Sounds like a fallacy and a generalization.
      - r_singh 8y ago
        But you’re right, there are exceptions, although far in between
  - r_singh 8y ago
    Most people who go to school (even up till something like elementary school) do not take up those jobs, hence the jobs do have something to do with illiteracy.
brazzledazzle 8y ago
I think functionality illiterate people can still use smart phones. Certainly not to their full capabilities though.
- peterburkimsher 8y ago
  I think they rely on smartphones, especially for basic maths or asking others for help. I'm disappointed that countries set such a high barrier to entry for immigrants (TOEFL level 6.5-7) when local people probably can't even achieve the same.
  - krageon 8y ago
    They set this high barrier of entry because they want only high-quality immigrants. I assume because they think this correlates with good socioeconomic status in the future (there is some indication of this, but I don't think it's been established. Please do send me some papers if it is, I'd love to read them). When you look at it from that light, I think it makes more sense.
  - jackvalentine 8y ago
    > I'm disappointed that countries set such a high barrier to entry for immigrants (TOEFL level 6.5-7) when local people probably can't even achieve the same. Shrug, seems harsh but the local people have a somewhat arbitrary birthright to be there and these countries can afford to pick and choose who they admit.
  - carlmr 8y ago
    Especially with the link to crime, why would you ever want illiterate or functionally illiterate immigrants?
CalRobert 8y ago
More worryingly, about 111% are innumerate.

pnloyd 8y ago

A lot of jobs now have internet only application processes.

hackujin 8y ago
A lot of jobs require literacy and a phone number.
DavidAdams 8y ago
This is just one of many reasons why public libraries are so important. It's a major part of the mandate for modern libraries and librarians to offer a place where people with low incomes, low educational attainment, low tech literacy, and even plain old low literacy can get some help navigating occasional requirements like an online job application or trying to enroll in some kind of assistance program.
- KC8ZKF 8y ago
  My local library in $SMALL_MIDWEST_TOWN lends Verizon portable hotspots for free.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  More than libraries, I wish there would be really affordable computers. We’ve already proven it’s technically possible, with Raspberry Pis and cheap Android phones. Now I wish we would stop cramming bloat and shit (like useless JavaScript and ads) into our websites and operating systems so those low-end machines actually remain usable and productive. Internet access should also be a right - not high speed 100+Mbps, but basic 1Mbps or so. The unused cell network capacity should be given away for free so that less fortunate people can still get online.
  - jlmorton 8y ago
    You can get a Samsung Chromebook for $75. The FCC operates the Lifeline program, which provides subsidized Internet access to low-income Americans, but the program was gutted about three months ago, dropping about 70% of enrollees.
    - austinheap 8y ago
      We just made America Great Again by freeing up that cluttered frequency for more important snaps. /s
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      There's also a second hand surplus of old technology. They may have wear & tear and other disadvantages though compared to today's standards: slower CPU, slower IO, less RAM, HDD instead of SSD, dead pixels, (half) dead batteries just to mention a few but hey its an option.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Yup. This is yet another forgotten aspect of software bloat - as it continues, it makes dirt-cheap computing unfeasible, because by the time you get e.g. something like Raspberry Pi, it's already too weak to run software/websites you'll encounter daily. I get that world isn't fair and poor people keep getting the short end of the stick, but in this case - software bloat - it's really mostly just aggregate of individual choices. So for cryin' out loud, be a little more lean with frameworks and libraries you use. Treat it as if it was charity contribution, if you have to, because in a sense, it is.
  - pmlnr 8y ago
    Used thinkpads on ebay.
  - picsao 8y ago
    If the world could opt out of bloat.. the ad industry would be gone.

tpfour 8y ago

For your interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy

ggregoire 8y ago
Half of the Italian population is functionally illiterate? What?
- gcatalfamo 8y ago
  Yep. Italian here, Can confirm.
  - adpirz 8y ago
    Can you explain why? And does that manifest on a daily level?
    - eksemplar 8y ago
      Look at their governments over the pas 25 years, I mean, they may not seem that crazy compared to Trump, but they’ve been, and continue to be, really shitty. It turns out that uneducated people make really uninformed decisions and as a result, it’s tanked their economy and exploded corruption.
    - piva00 8y ago
      I can give you my anecdote from Brazil: there are people of my age (25-35) that have been through basic education (quite a big chunk of them through high school even) that can't express themselves, that can't do basic arithmetic most of the times. It manifests in a lot of ways on a daily level, from people who can't explain what exactly they want from a store, from a hospital. Communication breaks down easily so they are used to be shouting all the time when talking to try to get a point across, etc.
    - dkarl 8y ago
      For an American anecdote, my father taught at a small rural public university, and he encountered students who were functionally illiterate every year. They were almost always from small rural schools. In a larger school, a kid who couldn't read would have had difficulty passing classes, received remedial instruction, been assessed for intellectual disabilities, and so on. Unless they had extremely serious behavioral problems or congenital intellectual disabilities, or they dropped out of the system entirely, they would learn to read! In a school system that is smaller, less impersonal, without extra programs and resources for a teacher to fall back on, it's really hard to label a kid a failure and deny him a diploma just because he's falling behind academically and the unsupported, often barely trained teacher can't get him up to speed. Especially in a small community with lots of illiterate people working and earning a living, it's hard to justify stigmatizing a kid that way and denying him an essential part of a normal American life, namely to go through school with his peers and have all the normal school experiences. So kids get passed along from grade to grade and then (why should 12th grade be different?) they get a diploma. There was also, I think, a kind of naive view that intelligence was a pretty broad spectrum and a lot of kids were naturally going to end up illiterate. This was understandable if your point of view was restricted entirely to a small rural area where a small but significant number of adults were illiterate. It just seemed natural for some people not to take to reading, and that was just a normal part of life, not something a person should be punished for. (Most teachers had a much more progressive and modern understanding, and I really don't want to overstate the prevalence of this view, but a handful of teachers here and there is enough to produce a steady trickle of children falling through the cracks.) Another factor was that there was not a uniform understanding of the purpose of high school and college credentials. Most people accepted the notion that a diploma should guarantee a minimal set of skills — functional literacy included. They valued the education and skills that their children were getting. Occasionally another feeling showed through, though, which was that educational credentials were a way of granting life success to some people and denying it to others, and requiring kids to succeed academically in school was just a way to perpetuate class and racial distinctions. This sentiment came to the fore when my state adopted a minimum skills test that kids needed to pass in order to get a diploma. This test was labeled "evil" by some people in my community because it pointlessly (in their eyes) denied their kids a chance for a normal life. They felt no anger or anxiety about the fact that their kids struggled with reading to the point where they couldn't pass a state basic skills test. They were only angry about their kids being denied an important life credential. And with Jared Kushner getting a Harvard diploma, you can't say it was entirely a made-up concern, even if they did adopt a counterproductive attitude towards their kids' education because of it.

LyndsySimon 8y ago

It’s surprising how well young children use the internet, pre-literacy. My 4-year-old asks Google questions all the time on her laptop, and gets answer most of the time.

Andrex 8y ago
There are many other factors for this, but the primary one is how much Google has invested in making that the case. Start them young.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  And then later they learn the privacy repercussions. Plus earning money on 4 year olds? If its via advertising its shady. There's code of conduct here that commercials for under 12 aren't allowed (so they target the parents instead, yay). I'll be teaching my kid to learn to go for the duck instead.
NotCamelCase 8y ago
I chuckle every time I remember that when my dad used to interview secretaries to hire ~20 yrs ago, he'd always ask "Can you use computer?" which sounds like a quite funny question to ask a 20-something years old person nowadays, let alone kids.
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  By the way, I used to think that in the future, when people have had computers already from childhood, everyone would know their way around them really well and be advanced users who know programming and what not. That did not happen.
  - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
    I would expect that the average computer/smart phone user in 2018 is much less computer-literate than the average computer user in 1998. You don't have to know anything about computers to use them now. I would expect for most non-technical users, the computer consists of the web browser, and maybe Microsoft Office and a few games and that's it. It's good that you don't have to know how a computer works to use it, but there are lots of downsides to that as well.

EGreg 8y ago

If literacy involves writing, then most kids are illiterate. Remember the three R’s? Now it’s down to two. Well, maybe one (American kids have long been using calculators). But a deeper question is, what do we actually lose if people can’t write by hand or do arithmetic?

pmiller2 8y ago
Writing typically refers to composition, not penmanship. I’m not actually sure penmanship has suffered much from ubiquitous computing. It would be interesting to do a study on it.
- PeCaN 8y ago
  > I’m not actually sure penmanship has suffered much from ubiquitous computing. It certainly has in Japan and China, but I'm not sure that extrapolates to simpler writing systems. I suspect it partially does due to schools spending less time teaching handwriting.
  - aikinai 8y ago
    Recall is definitely down, but don’t think penmanship has changed (at least in Japan). If anything wouldn’t it get better in a sense, since you write so rarely and develop less shortcuts which might be more efficient but less formal/elegant?
- mjevans 8y ago
  Depends what you want out of kids. I can tell you how to NOT do it. Don't start with block lettering for all of pre and grade school, then switch to ONLY cursive for 3 years... now I can't write anything nicely. It's still readable, more so to me. As for actual composition, don't force kids in to a rigid structure all the time. Maybe they've changed that too. It took me years to write in a more free form.
  - krageon 8y ago
    I had only cursive for my entire first twelve years of school, then slowly switched to block letters. My handwriting is really nice, but I don't think it had much to do with my school(s). I can't really glean from your comment why you think the kind of writing you are taught has anything to do with the kind of writing you use now.

aacook 8y ago

Maybe they make up some part of the 11% but I imagine age is a big factor. The old folks I know who don't use the Internet are some of the most well-read, whip-smart people I've met.

r_singh 8y ago

Here in India—guards, drivers and house helps are all on the Internet all day long!

pandasun 8y ago
What do those jobs have to do with illiteracy?
- regnarg 8y ago
  You don't need to be literate to do those jobs and so chances are, a lot of people doing those jobs are illiterate.
  - pandasun 8y ago
    You don't need to be, so therefore you aren't? Sounds like a fallacy and a generalization.
    - r_singh 8y ago
      But you’re right, there are exceptions, although far in between
- r_singh 8y ago
  Most people who go to school (even up till something like elementary school) do not take up those jobs, hence the jobs do have something to do with illiteracy.

brazzledazzle 8y ago

I think functionality illiterate people can still use smart phones. Certainly not to their full capabilities though.

peterburkimsher 8y ago
I think they rely on smartphones, especially for basic maths or asking others for help. I'm disappointed that countries set such a high barrier to entry for immigrants (TOEFL level 6.5-7) when local people probably can't even achieve the same.
- krageon 8y ago
  They set this high barrier of entry because they want only high-quality immigrants. I assume because they think this correlates with good socioeconomic status in the future (there is some indication of this, but I don't think it's been established. Please do send me some papers if it is, I'd love to read them). When you look at it from that light, I think it makes more sense.
- jackvalentine 8y ago
  > I'm disappointed that countries set such a high barrier to entry for immigrants (TOEFL level 6.5-7) when local people probably can't even achieve the same. Shrug, seems harsh but the local people have a somewhat arbitrary birthright to be there and these countries can afford to pick and choose who they admit.
- carlmr 8y ago
  Especially with the link to crime, why would you ever want illiterate or functionally illiterate immigrants?

CalRobert 8y ago

More worryingly, about 111% are innumerate.