Cell phones make kids faster, dumber

Thu Aug 13 00:50:01 UTC 2009

Amen.  Continents drift and asteroids killed the dinosaurs and later caused the ice age.  Who gnu.  Today's latest - bread and potatoes are good for you.

Things need to be tested.

Speaking about texting, I'm working on zipspell, an abbreviated spelling that uses autocorrect to expand words as you type.  Anyone know a way to expand the normal.dot file (in Word) to accept a big spreadsheet type list of words at once.  Putting the zips in one at a time is onerous.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling

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> Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:27:42 -0700
> From: dave at WILTON.NET
> Subject: Re: Cell phones make kids faster, dumber
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Dave Wilton
> Subject: Re: Cell phones make kids faster, dumber
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Actually, the data shows exactly the opposite. Children and teens who text a
> lot tend to have higher than average verbal skills. And most actual text
> messages (as opposed to those created as "examples" in news stories) use
> scrupulous spelling and punctuation. Where abbreviations are used, they tend
> to be used in contexts where the sender is certain the receiver will
> understand or as wordplay.
>
> This link between texting and verbal abilities may only be correlative, not
> causative. Those who text a lot may do so because they are verbally
> oriented, not because texting improves their ability (although I wouldn't be
> surprised if it had a beneficial effect).
>
> See Crystal's _Txtng: The Gr8 Db8_ for an excellent summary of the issue
> with citations to relevant research.
>
> Don't take things for granted. Gastroenterologists "knew" that acidic foods
> caused ulcers and dermatologists knew that chocolate and fried food caused
> acne. Astronomers "knew" the sun revolved around the earth--isn't it
> obvious, just look at a sunrise! Linguists shouldn't jump to similar
> conclusions in their own field without firm evidence. We need more "teams"
> examining the validity of basic assumptions.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Doug Harris
> Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:58 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Cell phones make kids faster, dumber
>
> Can't access your web page, Dennis, but I'm wondering...
> did it _really_ take a "team" of any sort to verify that (texting
> is 'counter intelligence')?
> Not that spelling in the younger generation(s) wasnt' bad
> enough already, texting has most certainly accentuated
> that problem, too.
> A young woman I know, 24 this month, a grad school education
> student (and with a year of high school teaching under belt,
> not only spells horribly, she seems not in the least concerned
> about how inaccurate she is.
> Watt, im wondrng, is the wurld comming too?
> dh
>
> Prepared and sent with Chaos Software's Intellect mail client.
> Intellect's contacts and appointments managers also are cool.
>
> ----- Original message ----------------------------------------
> From: "Dennis Baron"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Received: 8/12/2009 10:34:45 AM
> Subject: Cell phones make kids faster, dumber
>
>
>>There's a new post on the Web of Language: Cell phones make kids
>>faster, dumber
>
>>Last year the Librarian of Congress warned that texting was
>>responsible for a drastic decline in American sentences, but that
>>opinion wasn't backed up by any scientific evidence. Now, a team of
>>Australian psychologists has come a step closer to proving that mobile
>>phones are destroying our ability to think. The researchers show that
>>children who use mobile phones respond to higher-level cognitive tasks
>>faster, but less accurately, than those who don't.
>
>>Read the rest of the post on the Web of Language:
>>http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>
>>You can now subscribe to Web of Language posts -- just click the
>>"subscribe" link on the website.
>
>
>>____________________
>>Dennis Baron
>>Professor of English and Linguistics
>>Department of English
>>University of Illinois
>>608 S. Wright St.
>>Urbana, IL 61801
>
>>office: 217-244-0568
>>fax: 217-333-4321
>
>>http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
>>read the Web of Language:
>>http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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