Last fall the National Endowment for the Arts issued a sobering report linking flat or declining national reading test scores among teenagers with the slump in the proportion of adolescents who said they read for fun.

According to Department of Education data cited in the report, just over a fifth of 17-year-olds said they read almost every day for fun in 2004, down from nearly a third in 1984. Nineteen percent of 17-year-olds said they never or hardly ever read for fun in 2004, up from 9 percent in 1984. (It was unclear whether they thought of what they did on the Internet as “reading.”)

“Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”

Critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement. “What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,” said Mr. Gioia of the N.E.A. “I would believe people who tell me that the Internet develops reading if I did not see such a universal decline in reading ability and reading comprehension on virtually all tests.”

Reading skills are also valued by employers. A 2006 survey by the Conference Board, which conducts research for business leaders, found that nearly 90 percent of employers rated “reading comprehension” as “very important” for workers with bachelor’s degrees. Department of Education statistics also show that those who score higher on reading tests tend to earn higher incomes.

The simplest argument for why children should read in their leisure time is that it makes them better readers. According to federal statistics, students who say they read for fun once a day score significantly higher on reading tests than those who say they never do.

Neurological studies show that learning to read changes the brain’s circuitry. Scientists speculate that reading on the Internet may also affect the brain’s hard wiring in a way that is different from book reading.

Some scientists worry that the fractured experience typical of the Internet could rob developing readers of crucial skills. “Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode,” said Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale who has studied brain scans of children reading.

numerous employers have complained of the sheer volume of job applications they receive written in text language [1]. In particular they note that many applicants have a tendency to speak informally and use text message abbreviations, giving the impression that they are corresponding with an old friend rather than a potential employer. Such prospective applicants seem therefore poorly educated, lazy, and unprofessional. Needless to say, in most cases such applications are thrown in the bin and never thought of again.

this casual, lazy usage of text language outside of the world of mobile phones is becoming something of a contagious disease. Phrases such as ‘lol’ and ‘k’ (meaning ‘laugh out loud’ and ‘okay’ respectively) are being used increasingly in speech and in email correspondence. The result is that many employees and prospective employees appear highly unprofessional in the work place, particularly when corresponding with their superiors.

Mr. Cingel, who published the study while at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Mr. Sundar found that the more often students sent text messages using text-speak (shortened words and homophones), the worse their grammar—a concern as 13- to 17-year-olds send more than twice the number of text messages each month than any other age group.

People get creative in terms of trying to express a lot. The economy of expression forces us to take shortcuts with our expression. We know people are texting in a hurry, they are on mobile devices, and so they are making these compromises,” Mr. Sundar said. “It’s not surprising that grammar is taking a back seat in that context. What is worrisome is it somehow seems to transfer over to their offline grammar skills. They are not code-switching offline.”

In that way, students who use tech-speak differ from those who speak multiple languages; multilingual children have been found to switch back and forth easily among their languages in different contexts and may actually be more flexible in other ways of thinking. Tech-speak is similar enough to standard English that researchers believe it may bleed over into different contexts more easily….

9Facebook Makes You Miserable

according to science, it’s making us all miserable.

Facebook usage for two weeks while simultaneously keeping tabs on their mood. They found that frequent users reported lower life-satisfaction both at the end of the fortnight and after individual visits to the site. In other words, a single visit to Facebook was roughly the equivalent of watching a puppy get punched for four hours—but the bad news doesn’t stop there. A separate German investigation discovered that the primary emotion felt by young people on Facebook is envy—as in, proper green-eyed, bile-spitting, rage-inducing envy. The theory goes that most of us inflate our achievements and happiness on our profiles, but somehow miss the logical assumption that everyone else is doing it too.

8We Get Twitter Rage

Chinese researchers studied over 70 million posts on Sina Weibo (China’s version of Twitter) to see how different emotions spread across the network. They found that anger utterly trounces every other emotion for getting retweeted—leaving joy, disgust, and sadness trailing in its wake. Now, the study obviously only looked at Chinese users, but a quick non-scientific glance at the sort of topics trending on Twitter suggests it applies over here too. In short, social media is steadily making us less happy and more angry. But that’s not all it’s doing.

7Facebook Also Makes You Racist

We all know that the Internet is a breeding ground for racism; anyone who thinks otherwise can try spending an hour or so surfing YouTube comments and report back.

A recent study looked at the links between social media use and racism and found that people who spend a lot of time on Facebook are more likely to be accepting of prejudice. Researchers set up a fake profile for a fictitious white guy named Jack Brown, then asked participants to rate how much they agreed with his statements. One statement claimed that whites were superior to blacks, another that whites are victimized by society, while a final one gave examples of anti-black prejudice “Jack” had witnessed. Overwhelmingly, those participants who were frequent Facebook users expressed strong support for the “superiority” statement, i.e., the most racist of the lot. Now, this could simply mean that racists are more likely to frequently use Facebook than us non-racists, but either way it’s a pretty grim result.

6 It Might Make You Dumber

In 2009, the journal Science published an overview of studies about the effect of new media on our cognitive abilities. They found that while the Internet can increase “visual literacy skills,” that increase appears to be offset with decreases in other areas, such as critical thinking, inductive problem solving, imagination, and “abstract vocabulary.”

we’re becoming dumber in might be more important: Critical thinking and imagination are pretty vital human traits. If we end up trading them in for super-duper “visual literacy skills,” it won’t exactly be the trade of a lifetime.

5It’s Rewiring Our Brains

By scanning the brains of 125 students in London, researchers noticed a direct link between the number of Facebook friends the students had and the amount of grey matter in certain regions of their brains. Since these regions are thought to play a part in memory, social interaction, and possibly even autism, this is kinda important. Now, the study can’t tell us for certain whether social media is causing this rewiring or whether people with these different brain structures are simply more likely to flock to Facebook. But there is plenty of evidence that the Internet is affecting the way we behave, so who knows what else it might be doing.

4It Allows Companies To Influence Us

2 It’s More Addictive Than Heroin

Sufferers show symptoms of withdrawal when unable to get online, while those that do seem to undergo a process in their brains that’s near-identical to that experienced by cocaine and heroin addicts. That’s right: Using the Internet every single day apparently effects your brain very similarly to shooting up behind a dumpster.

1Social Media May Destroy Empathy

There’s a lot of research out there to suggest today’s youth are way less empathetic than youth 30 years ago—precisely 40 percent less, according to the study cited in that link back there. Students today are less likely to feel for others, to show concern for others, and are significantly worse at prescriptive talking—the ability to perceive other people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations. No one knows for sure why this is. It could be a wider societal problem, or down to the cultural rise of aggressive individualism, but some think the blame lies firmly at the door of social media.

scientists are suggesting that that may be down to social media forcibly slowing our compassion responses.

Judging by this list, the entire Internet will be full of miserable, angry idiots shouting their opinions at one another and sadistically reveling in the misfortune of others.

Studies have shown that television viewing may actually be detrimental to the perceptual development of children who are not already deficient in language ability and visual skills

It is my opinion that reading works the brain. I know that when I read, I can use my imagination, I can draw on information I already know, I can absorb new facts and ways of thinking about things. Volti says that reading fosters “imaginative continuations” that televised stories do not (242).

Finally, Volti states “There is also a fair amount of evidence that television watching may contribute to underdeveloped reading skills in children” (242).

Technology does have the potential to destroy cultural,

The select group of ideas important to a society must also exist before technology can make memorizing the list pointless. It is only possible for students to be taught so much information in their academic lives and for all schools to collaborate and decide what should be taught would be impossible. In the generation of Hirsch's father the amount of knowledge the world possessed was not as great. The more the world learns the more options there are for subject material taught and the harder it becomes to unify subject material. It is probably true that teaching methods are improving while we learn but it seems like unless there are incredible improvements in teaching there will always be vast amounts of knowledge which cannot be taught in an academic life. Also, if schools go in the opposite direction of Hirsch's desire then the population will have a diverse knowledge instead of equal. Communication may not be as good but there are obviously benefits to diversity. If we ignore certain subjects then we may miss out on making possible discoveries. If Hirsch were successful in getting schools to agree on subject material, then schools might agree that studying certain types of cells in trees is unimportant because more time should be spent on Shakespeare so references and communication could improve. The world of people would lose out on some specific areas of study so people could communicate better. It is possible that by studying a specific tree cell less for the sake of communication could cause a disease cure not to be found if the extra study of cells would lead to a discovery.

standard education is important in creating literate adults.

Hirsch, in "Literacy and Cultural Literacy," states that standard education is important in creating literate adults. Hirsch believes that "we will achieve a just and prosperous society only when our schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with everyone else" ( Hirsch, p. 32). If everyone has a similar education then communication is made easier because certain things can be assumed. Hirsch uses examples which occur in the US such as knowing about currency and which side of the road one is supposed to drive on. For more complicated ideas, schools are responsible for supplying the knowledge. These direct comments about education and literacy strengthen his position. Schools are the primary sources of background for most people. For instance, Hirsch says that in his father's generation his father could say to his colleagues, "there is a tide" ( Hirsch, p. 9), and because his colleagues all had been educated in Shakespeare's writings his colleagues would know to make some important business decisions

as technology continues to improve the imbalances will only increase. The schools which have adequate money will be able to buy computers and other technology which improves education. All public schools are supposed to receive near-equal money from governments but public schools can receive donations from parents and other organizations. Depending on the location of a school the school might receive a lot of money or only a little. Schools located in poor, predominately minority areas such as the schools in Ogbu's examples would be likely to not have adequate money for new technologies. If other students are benefiting from being taught from computers and also are becoming computer literate, a skill applicable in the work-place, then the students lacking technologies will not be able to compete outside of school. The fortunate students will have a definite advantage and the unfortunate students will be even further behind.

Raskin fears that a computer could damage students, claiming that "computerized instruction robs the student of the warm human guiding hand, thus dehumanizing the process of education and cognitive development-possibly with unimaginably monstrous long-range consequences" ( Raskin, p. 32).

Young students are likely to mimic and acquire attitudes from teachers and experiences, so if the computer "teacher" were to appear mean the student may acquire mean attitudes and act violently towards other students. The computer could act friendly but it would be difficult for a computer to appear personal. The student may learn that computers are friendly and begin to lose trust in humans. Damage such as this, if done at a young age, could inhibit a successful social life for the student. Nonetheless, in the case where human teachers are abusive or violent the computer teacher may be an advantage even if the student acquires some alienation towards other people. Still, the best scenario for young students is for them to have friendly, human teachers. This way the student becomes familiar with interacting with people and receives a "warm human guiding hand."

This progression has led software developers to become more advanced but allowed common computer users to be less advanced. The developers' computer literacy must be very high so that the full capabilities of the computer can be taken advantage of and a profitable product can be made. The common user is willing to pay for products which are easy to use but that takes the user farther away from what the computer is actually doing. A user can be naive about how computers work, thus being less computer literate, and still be able to use computers effectively. It is good that technology is becoming more accessible to people but it is bad that this is allowing literacy to decrease. However, it is possible that this decrease in literacy may be acceptable. Higher technologies can be used without the literacy and instead of people spending time learning how to use technology they can spend their time acquiring other knowledge.

Technology does have the potential of damaging literacy. If Hirsch is correct about cultural literacy depending on a certain set of ideas then technology may advance to the point where we can use databases constantly and not need have as much knowledge as we do now.

students do not need to develop social skills to interact with a computer and may even be damaged from this lack of human interaction. To prevent this, schools should not use computer teaching a majority of the time

performance is not hindered regardless of whether or not a student's culture is predominantly oral since "children of illiterate Chinese immigrants have done quite well in American schools" ( Ogbu, p. 4). So if a student of a certain race can become literate independent of what culture he is from then literacy must depend on education. Schools teach the literacy skills needed to compete for jobs: "in modern societies the school is the principal institution adapting children to bureaucratized industrial economy" ( Ogbu, p. 32). If a group of students is not receiving a fair education then that group will not be able to compete in the work-force. If the discontinuities in education are fixed then literacy will improve for the groups which were being hurt. Ogbu has a strength in that he believes that educational institutions provide means for later survival but he also makes it seem like our schools are unfair and it is impossible for everyone to get a good education.