Anon is Illiterate

Comments

• Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I had a coworker approach me on break and start telling me about a book he was reading and how much he was enjoying it. Towards the end, he mentioned struggling with it and that he wished someone had told him how great reading was earlier. We were both damn near 30, and it was a YA novel. I resisted the asshole urge to roast him because, shit, at least he’s trying?

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  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Not only is he trying, he laments not learning better when he was younger. Great self-awareness, and taking ownership today.

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    • Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Very true. Hopefully, he still enjoys reading today.

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  • Gullible@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    He is an obese man in the gym. Literally nothing more admirable than someone improving themselves.

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    • Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Exactly! And not just doing it, but sticking to it AND vulnerably admitting to struggling.

      If only more people could do it.

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    • PentastarM@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      My spouse always says, you don’t mock a sick person in hospital, why mock someone who is working to improve other aspects of themselves.

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  • cobysev@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    When I was in the US Air Force, I was deployed to a US Marine camp once, and listening to those guys chat among themselves was always a treat. You never knew what dumbass comments were going to come out of their mouths.

    One day, one of the young corporals mentioned that, while traveling to another base, he got stuck waiting for a connecting flight between bases for about a week and he was so bored, he read A BOOK. He stressed the fact that he’s never read an entire book from cover to cover before, but he did on this layover because he was so extremely bored.

    To my surprise, the other Marines just nodded along, like this made perfect sense to them. Not a single person harassed him for never reading a book before (and they harass each other all the time for the simplest things).

    I mean, we poke fun at Marines for being dumb. They call themselves jarheads, which is an allusion to the fact that their heads are as empty as a jar. But it still blows my mind to hear the dumb things they say sometimes.

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    • oxideseven@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      That’s not why Marines are called jarheads. While we do love the occasional crayon, we’re not all stupid.

      Jarhead first originated somewhere during WW2 because the high collar on some of our uniforms making it look like our heads were popping out of jars. The term has meant a few other things since then, like referencing the high and tight haircut, or being so “uptight” on their training and discipline and described as having that hat screwed on tight like the lid of a jar.

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  • CalipherJones@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I had a friend tell me that she didn’t learn to read until she was like eight. Ya never really know where people come from. All of our lives are so different.

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    • PurplePixie@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I wasn’t capable of reading completely on my own until I was nine years old. I also made top grades in all of my college English classes. Where you start doesn’t necessarily dictate where you’ll end up, especially if you enjoy an activity as much as I enjoyed reading.

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    • Microw@piefed.zip ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I dont think that is considered particularly late here in central europe. Yes, kids should be able to read properly at 6, but a lot of them don't.

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  • Zirconium@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I read YA as Yaoi and I’m like “or course it’s reasonable to roast him for telling a coworker about the Yaoi he’s reading”

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    • Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      No, the correct reaction is “I do not know the Jah-Oi of which you speak. What is this art form that I have never heard of?”

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  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    We’ve all got to start somewhere.

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  • kepix@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    trust me, it is indeed easy to hate reading if you have asshole teachers. he got lucky and was able to discover reading at a later age.

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  • Boxscape@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Struggling how though?

    If they were struggling with the vocabulary, then that might be roastable.

    But if they meant, e.g., struggling with the themes, that might be understandable. YA books sometimes tackle difficult subjects or are subtle, layered, etc.

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    • oxideseven@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Why roast someone trying to improve? We haven’t all had the same opportunities in life.

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    • Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It was the general reading/vocabulary.

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  • binarytobis@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    A while back I read several bad books in a row and decided to try manga for a break. Some of them were good, others weren’t. Then I got frustrated because most of the stuff I was reading wasn’t finished, so I sought out the source material novels that were further along. Ended up finding some really good books that I otherwise would have never knew existed.

    Highly recommend the Ascendence of a Bookworm novel.

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  • sunbytes@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s better to read what you enjoy than what you “should” be reading.

    Given enough time, they’ll maybe become the same thing anyway.

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• AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I read a lot of science fiction, and a younger friends at work frequently asked me for recommendations, and he liked talking about the books after reading them. At some point I found out that he exclusively consumes them as audiobooks, which is fine and I didn’t think much about it. Some years down the line, when I was getting ready to retire, I had to pass on things to him. There was enough of it that, in addition to working elbow-to-elbow with him, I documented all the details in some long emails. When we meet, I’d say “The details are in the email,” and focus on explaining the big picture.

  It became obvious that he never read the emails. When I talked to him about it, he admitted that he really struggles with any long block of text. The guy is really smart, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but he gets all his info from audio and video because struggles to consume text. There’s clearly some kind of learning/mental issue going on there. It’s going to make the job tough for him, but I hope he works it out.

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  • CMonster@discuss.online ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That is so crazy for me one a personal level because I’m the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.

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    • BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Seriously, written guide > > > > > > > video guide

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    • AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’m good with distilling information in whatever form, but I do get impatient with audio/video sometimes. I can read faster than people talk, so I want the audio to go faster. I’ve tried upping the playback speed, but we encode a lot of information in the pauses and cadence of speech, and the faster playback screws with the perception of that. Doing that is fine for technical information, but I don’t care for it with a novel.

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    • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      This is also a great example of how, even if there are no disabilities involved, everyone has different learning styles. Some people just process information differently.

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  • DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If someone is trying to convey important information, I’d rather get an email, than a text. And, I’d rather get a text than a voice call.

    Writing requires thought to form sentence that make sense. And, forces the person to slow down a bit and gives them time to think about what they are staying. Also, they at least have the opportunity to read before they send, to check if they left anything out. Finally, and this is especially important in business, we have a “paper trail” that can be referred back to.

    It took me years to stop the owner of the business I worked for to stop giving me instructions verbally. He did end-runs around shop policy to get his own pet projects prioritized. Policies that he put into place. Why do business owners sabotage their own businesses?

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    • AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’m with you, I like written things that I can digest and refer back to, though it’s worth mentioning that if you have questions, it much quicker to work through those face to face.

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  • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If only everyone recorded personal logs like in Star Trek you could have just bequeathed him those! On a serious note though, good on them for trying to learn and expand their knowledge even with some sort of learning disability. I was diagnosed with ADHD like 30 years ago and I understand how troubling it can be trying to read things while constantly having to re-read sentences because you spaced out, or having to keep 5 browser tabs open because each new section brings up some other topic that I now need. I describe my learning/through process as a spider web for good reason.

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    • user224@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I actually prefer text for the same reason. No need to pause and rewind, then once again forget what I wanted to hear and go back for the 4th time.

      I by far prefer text for things that matter.

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    • AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Life is hard enough without those extra challenges. Hang in there.

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  • lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They found a way to learn that works for them. As someone that almost always prefer text, I understand why you feel this way but you must have realized that most people prefer this format. And as far as I can tell, so long as they can read an email when it’s important (which they’ll learn one way or another), it will be fine.

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    • AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      He’s been working at the company for more than 15 years and still struggles to read any significant block of text, so I’m worried for him. It’s not that he prefers audio, it’s that text is a real problem for him.

      And don’t misunderstand me: I’m the guy’s biggest cheerleader; I very much want him to succeed and am happy with any viable workaround he finds. I’m not pushing any sort of personal bias on him. The company works with a lot of text.

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    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      so long as they can read an email when it’s important

      At my last job I managed a team of coders in India. They absolutely, categorically refused to ever read anything that I wrote to them, no matter what the situation. I had to maintain a 4AM-noon schedule just so I could have realtime interactions with them at least part of my day and give them instructions verbally. To their credit, they didn’t really listen to what I said much, either.

      I still wonder whether it was a side effect of being able to speak English but not being able to read and write it very well, or whether they were consciously trying to avoid having any paper trail that they could be held accountable for.

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  • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Something else I forgot to mention was a concept that I learned in the military called BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. The idea is that most people aren’t going to read past the first sentence or two before skipping to the end so you better get the absolutely critical information out right away; before your reader gets bored/decides they have more pressing matters to deal with. I would regularly see emails that started with a summary before even the salutations.

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    • AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Oh, yes, we use BLUF at work a lot, but it’s not really useful if you’re trying to pass along detailed knowledge.

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  • KuroiKaze@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Google Gemini will turn a block of text into a podcast convo to help people with this particular quirk. Have him try it out

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    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Audio input of information is many factors slower than reading can be. Better to try and fix a reading problem.

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    • AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The text in question would be behind a firewall, but I believe there’s a corporate LLM now. I’ll suggest it.

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• Machinist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I’ve known several men that were proud that they didn’t read books. (Not that they read manga or anything, either.)

  One of them, in particuular, was a grown up version of a stereotypical highschool bully. Willfully ignorant doesn’t begin to describe him. I ever meet him in a dark alley, I’d fucking gut him.

  Anyhow, this behavour (pride in ignorance) among women is rare enough that I’ve never seen it. When I was doing online dating, I had great success asking what they’re reading and using decent grammar and vocabulary.

  Anti-intellectualism and willfull ignorance have a lot to do with the situation here in the US. I think it’s mostly a male problem as well.

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  • virku@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Have you ever done any sort of IT support? I was internal IT in my first job and we had those people. It was mostly women 50+ years old who were proud that they know nothing about computers and would actively avoid listening when I tried to tell them how to do something trivial. Even when it was part of their jobs to do it. Then they would ask for help with the same stupid shit a few weeks later.

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    • rmuk@feddit.uk ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Fucking hell, so much this. They’re so goddamn proud of their ignorance. This is why I enforce a very strict “we’re mechanics, not chauffeurs” policy in my team. We’ve got no duty - either literal or moral - to make up for incompetence.

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    • Machinist@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Not IT support directly but I’ve had that same experience with plenty of boomer men in machine shops. They’re fucking proud that they suck at computer yet CNC has been around since the '80s in a big way.

      Ran a shop for a while and still have the terminating document from when I fired one of those fuckers.

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    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If I was as bad at reading and responding to emails as the folks I support…

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  • Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Highschool bullies are just a grown up version of middle school bullies. That shit was supposed to stop there.

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    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      And so many of them (in the US at least) never grow out of it and become President.

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  • lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I met a lot of women like this also. It just manifests differently. Rather than books it will be the newest celebrity drama/reality show.

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• renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  wtf is a "chapter book"?

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  • jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s a book with chapters. Basically a regular ass book. When kids are real little, their books are like 15 pages long. Then in like 1st or 2nd grade, they move onto reading big kid books - aka “chapter books” that have enough pages to warrant chapters.

    You never hear someone over the age of 7 or 8 mention reading “chapter books” because they’re just know as books.

    Except anon, who is dumb as fuck.

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    • lurch@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Anon could be a kid. On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. Actually, a lot of content on 4chan looks like a giggling 8 year old posted it; especially the posts about poop.

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    • Flipper@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There are regular books that don’t have any chapters. Most of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Books are an example of this.

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  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    A book.

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      With multiple chapters.

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  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Literally just a book that isn’t made for children.

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  • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    it is a book which is long enough that its broken into “chapters” so that you have a good stopping point to pause your reading for the day.

    Or in the context of OOP, a book containing many^1^ pages of text and no pictures^2^

    1. greater than 30
    2. more than 0.5 pages of text per image

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  • Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s like a webnovel but not necessarily web.

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• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  As you read these comments, remember that 56% of Americans read at a 6th-grade level or above; the rest read below that.

  Please be gentle.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    remember that 56% of Americans read at a 6th-grade level or above; the rest read below that.

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  • jaybone@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I recall reading somewhere that adult literacy was at like 98% in the US. Though that was like 25 years ago, and I suppose a 6th grade level still counts as “literate”? Or did we slide backwards?

    If we have to talk about this in terms of “grade levels”, at what point is someone actually considered illiterate?

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    • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Measuring two different things. Your number: can read the words, mostly understand the words they read.

      6th graders are generally literate. However, they’re not necessarily picking up on nuance, or subtleties. And they will often not take into account how the sentence they just read fits into the overall context of the piece, and they likely won’t question the narrator, assuming they’re reliable.

      You can imagine how half of adults being that bad at these things has colored political discourse.

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    • Mirshe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There’s different levels of literacy as well. If we take things like math literacy and functional literacy into account (things like doing your taxes or filling out government forms), something like 60% of the adult population is functionally illiterate (below a third grade level) in at least one area.

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    • FATALRPG@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Schools in the US stopped teaching phonics.

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    • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      The way they get that grade level reading comprehension is dubious. If you read the news, non-academic magazines, and most of the NYTs best seller list, you likely have been reading primarily around that level according to these tests.

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  • daggermoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Okay, Canadians are still at a disadvantage compared to the average European. You and I aren’t so different.

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• nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Do note: The US public education system has raised a significant number of younger millennials, genZ, and gen-α (especially in impoverished areas) to be functionally illiterate due to both profiteering and desire to destroy education. Effectively, they switched to literacy programs meant to help people with cognitive disabilities somewhat function in a world that has writing everywhere. This does not teach people how to read or comprehend. It also robs them of capacity to self-learn from texts.

  So, there’s a massive cohort of people whose parents and/or caregivers were not able to be spend time teaching this extremely important skill who are likely below 6th grade reading level.

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  • DahGangalang@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I heard schools have largely moved away from Phonics, which is wild to me. That’s basically how reading was taught going back to at least medieval monks.

    I hear they’re using a “look and see” method or something? Word is that its how the Chinese teach their students to read…but they don’t have an alphabet, so I don’t know how that’s supposed to work in English.

    I have a relative who just retired from teaching and she says its a real mess in early education because of how badly this reading teaching method works, and its only worsening as students mature.

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• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The problem with comic books is that they’re all about this big flashy pictures and they never have any words in them. Oh well, anyway, off to read some more Chainsaw Man and One Punch…

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  • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    He looks absolutely enthralled at the wall of text lol. Image

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  • Baggie@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    God I’m remembering in Hunter X Hunter how there were entire spreads detailing complex rulesets for world building, and they legit felt like the silmarilion at times.

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• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Anon has aphantasia

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  • Dojan@pawb.social ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You can still enjoy reading if you have aphantasia. I can’t picture shit, but verbose books tend to be my favourites.

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• binarytobis@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No one’s talking about anon’s weird assumption that authors go from idea directly to manga, and not that most authors start by writing a novel to attract a sponsor.

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• sheogorath@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Fuck by chapter book I thought they’re talking about Warhammer 40k novel about a specific Space Marine chapter and they’re disappointed because they don’t want to read 40k novels.

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• unprovenbreeze@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I had to search it to understand the post. Well, that’s a weird name to describe a normal book for children.

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• Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I can’t read without pictures!

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• SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Chapter book belong in the Chapter House (Dune)

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• nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  what the fuck is a “chapter book”

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• tetris11@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  you guys do realise the poster is making a joke I hope, no need to actually get upset about this

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• Etterra@discuss.online ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  If there’s no pictures children won’t read them.

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• NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  What’s a chapter book?

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• ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You can build up literacy like a muscle. I can read a lot if I forget to take my ADHD worsener (valproic acid), but even with that I can sometimes “rawdog” it.

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• robocall@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I listen to audio books more often than reading an actual book.

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• RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I assume it’s similar how I can’t get in to manga, but I can enjoy a novel or animated stuff. Just can’t seem to enjoy those black and white squares with questionable art in them. Just doesn’t speak to me.

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• captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I fucking knew 4chan was illiterate /hj

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