In the era of digital communication, we lose the ability to read and understand

Under the text of my editorial colleague on the problems with Mac keyboards, I read a funny commentary, urging him not to make literers in the text.

I decided that it was an interesting game with the convention in which the text and its title were written. Another comment has already puzzled me Maybe the commenter did not get a joke? With ten more and after a few messages to the editor I already knew that somewhere during the technological revolution, we lost the ability to read with understanding.

When I was six years old, I got to my parents' library. Because I was attracted by the fantasy, I reached for the book on which the cover was a space rocket. It was "Eden" by Stanisław Lem. Unfortunately, the ability to read was limited to putting letters in words and words to sentences. In my intellectual arsenal I did not have the ability to read language stylistic means like metaphor, and I read most of the phraseological phrases and idioms literally. I was just an immature reader.

It was very hard to read. I remember that at some point words are saying that the hero was blinded by a flash of light. I was convinced that from now on she is blind! I was surprised that in the next scene he could look around freely.

Similar inability becomes our part in the Internet communication era.

We can put letters into sentences, but this is the end. Metaphor, rhetorical question, understatement left the reader's defaults? No way.

I have the impression that if today Ernest Hemingway wrote for us, about his work entitled "Who beats the bell" comments would appear: "Clickbait! I did not find out who the bell is ringing! "

Thanks to the ease of expression on the Internet, the distinction between colloquial speech and a stylized statement in the written language disappears. On the Internet I find more and more often texts that sound as if the author wrote his verbal, chaotic and ill-conceived statement. And I am not surprised at all - this will be the way to most readers who will not have to wonder what the answer to the rhetorical question is. The readers raised on such a record later try to write themselves. Some of them even face prose, which can be seen on the popular Watpad portal.

The question is, is it really bad?

Language has always evolved, and the greater "reflexiveness" of expression causes the barrier between the written and spoken word to blur. Fiction books are still written differently, using a variety of stylistic measures, but this will probably change. However, I support the other side.

Since we have already made the greatest effort: we read articles on the internet, comment on them, and reflect on their content. Let's try to teach us something.

Why did this freak author put a question in the title, and the first sentence of his statement does not answer them? How did he construct his statement? Maybe you should not take everything literally. Maybe some other meaning is hidden under some words and sentences?

Becoming acquainted with the richness of language and statements other than literal and evaluative (as Aristotle described them: "in the low style"), will allow you to better express your own thoughts, understand others and even influence who reads our statement.

In the era of digital communication, we lose the ability to read and understand