The Master Happy Birthday thread

[Vlad]

Happy Birthday Doug !

 

[luso]

thanks guys.
Vlad, Alain, have you guys moved to midtown?
Maybe we can catch up for a lunch.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The lost art of writing

It seems to me the more technologically advanced we are, the less likely we will spend time writing, be it a way to communicate or just express ourselves.
We are getting comfortable to the swindling number of characters we use each day to email, to update on our Facebook, to twit.
I remember growing up keeping a journal as required by my teachers to improve my penmanship. With all the toys available, it would be an uphill battle to keep my kid interested in reading and writing.
I'm using Quantnet as an outlet for my writing exercise and without it, my communication line would be reduced to a series of short emails. I'm an old school but it's disheartened to see members from new generation come here and post without regard to how they express in writing.
Thoughts?

 

[daleholborow]

I absolutely agree with you Andy, and I think you'll find out we're not alone. An American friend of mine and I used to both lament at the sudden and disturbing trend of txt-speak that people even only a couple years younger than us have taken to heart.

Funny you should mention getting your children interested in learning... I have already started collecting a number of books on math and english (amongst other topics) to teach my kids when I eventually have them... since I don't expect the school system to provide much in the way of education!

Sad days.

 

[bigbadwolf]

With all the toys available, it would be an uphill battle to keep my kid interested in reading and writing.

Technology works against reading, writing, and thinking. The "fix" it provides is instant, like junk food or crack cocaine. Reading, writing, and thinking take time to develop and need a society free of tech distractions. However, even were you to free society from such distractions you would find only a minority of people developing the skills whose absence you lament. It was not so much different a century or two back.

Writers like Morris Berman ("Dark Ages America") and Jane Jacobs ("Dark Ages Ahead") are talking along the same lines as you are.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm not a Harry Porter fan but I think the books have been tremendous in making reading fun and exciting again for children. I can't wait to give books as gift to my kid.
On the tech site, the popularity of blogging is a plus since it attracts more and more people to write daily. The writing quality is in question and the majority of the blog out there is dead, dying or abandoned.

 

[doug reich]

In defense of the modern youth who grew up on this stuff, most people I know do plenty of reading. It's not clear to me that the average person ever wrote things deeper or better composed than a letter. You can romanticize the medium if you like, but I don't think there's a "good old days" of popular, personal writing. If anything, technology has made it possible to have more literature than would have otherwise been. Regardless, reading and writing is bimodal: some people do a lot, some people do none. You are picking on the latter and pretending the former don't exist.

 

[Eugene Krel]

Dear Diary,

Today I saw the 1337est thing. It was a total lol. And then like totally omg.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Regardless, reading and writing is bimodal: some people do a lot, some people do none. You are picking on the latter and pretending the former don't exist.

I think you kind of agree with my point. I don't question that "some people do a lot" as I count myself in this camp.
I agree that "technology has made it possible to have more literature than would have otherwise been" but I'm not totally convinced it would actually make people read more. Just 10, 15 years ago, the only entertainment you could have or afford is books, newspaper. Now you have internet, games, tv. Do reading news flashes now replace reading classic novels?
Time is changing and it's the family's responsibility to instill the love of reading/writing to their kids and it's my sense that it's a harder job today than years past.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Dear Diary,

Today I saw the 1337est thing. It was a total lol. And then like totally omg.

Eugene,
Thanks for sharing your diary with us. It's heart warming to know that someone this generation still keeps a diary.
I think your diary is awesome. Totally.

 

[Eugene Krel]

I think you kind of agree with my point. I don't question that "some people do a lot" as I count myself in this camp.
I agree that "technology has made it possible to have more literature than would have otherwise been" but I'm not totally convinced it would actually make people read more. Just 10, 15 years ago, the only entertainment you could have or afford is books, newspaper. Now you have internet, games, tv. Do reading news flashes now replace reading classic novels?
Time is changing and it's the family's responsibility to instill the love of reading/writing to their kids and it's my sense that it's a harder job today than years past.

Is it truly as important to read classics today as it was 50 years go, or even 10 years ago. There is an enormous amount of information to consume today, that makes news flashes more digestible than War and Peace.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Maybe it's not as important as when it was a required reading for school kids my age. There are so much info these days and it's impossible to get a kid to get a novel instead of reading his SMS. What I'm getting at in this "lost art of writing" is the passion people have lost for writing (or reading).
However people read these days, do you think it's OK to tell your kid to never worry about writing anything properly. Isn't college essay is the first important piece they will have to write? If they don't start young, then when.

 

[Eugene Krel]

I am not saying that children should stick to reading SMS messages only. Everyone should be able to express themselves in writing, but that doesn't mean they have to be passionate about writing or reading. Admittedly, when one reads and writes a lot he gets better at both.

 

[Uncle Max]

I'm using Quantnet as an outlet for my writing exercise and without it, my communication line would be reduced to a series of short emails.

What about Blackberry Messenger? I think some days you type more characters in chat than on Quantnet

 

[woody]

When was the last time you got a letter from a friend? I remember when I was young, we'd write to each other several pages every couple of months. Some letters were so long, they'd have lines like "I have to go to bed now. I'll continue in the morning. Okay I'm back."

 

[Eugene Krel]

How is that super long letter any different than talking with a friend through an instant messenger (bad grammar aside). The content is still there if we so choose (although I am sure that not every letter was a work of art), the speed at which we can send and receive that content is greatly improved.

 

[woody]

Please don't put words in my mouth (or anything else). I don't see anywhere that I said sending/receiving long letters was any 'better' than a text message, though I'm sure I could argue that point, or that letters were 'art.' However, how many emails between soldiers and their loved ones will be saved in 100 years versus how many Civil War letters are saved? The physical world has value in permanence. The digital world has value in expedience.

 

[Roger Trimble]

However, how many emails between soldiers and their loved ones will be saved in 100 years versus how many Civil War letters are saved? The physical world has value in permanence. The digital world has value in expedience.

Well, I can tell you my wife actually did print out our emails and save them when I was deployed. Not saying that everyone does this, but I'm sure she's not the only one. I think you're right about the value added in both worlds. The bridge is the old-fashioned printer, as my left-handed-impossible-to-read-handwritten letters would have been worthless 100 years from now.

 

[bigbadwolf]

How is that super long letter any different than talking with a friend through an instant messenger (bad grammar aside). The content is still there if we so choose (although I am sure that not every letter was a work of art), the speed at which we can send and receive that content is greatly improved.

The letters were infrequent and so longer than typical email messages. There was more to report and being longer more attention had to be given to organisation (sentence and paragraph structure) and the likely impact of the tone on the reader. Also, handwriting lent a personal touch to the missive. The art of letter-writing -- like the art of conversation -- has mostly died out. "c u @ 4" isn't quite the same thing.

Being an attentive and careful listener, being an attentive and careful reader, being a skilled and persuasive writer, and being an entertaining and persuasive speaker have all pretty much died out. We live in a philistine age, most in evidence in the United States.

 

[woody]

I'll throw in that more frequent communications are not necessarily better. A weekly magazine will have insight and analysis that differs from an online news site that reports in real time. Similarly, a letter written once a month will have a retrospective quality not possible in a txt msg.

That said, this current discussion would hardly be worthwhile if we were sending letters to each other.