Lately, I’ve harbored a sneaking suspicion that the general population has moved beyond the endearing free-thinking eccentricity I love about America to the dangerously under-educated that could get us all killed.
For example, I saw a post the other day—and yes, you can see anything on the Interwebs, but this one got me. The poster was excited and somewhat frightened because he/she had seen the moon in the middle of the day and swore that it had never happened before. Many commenters agreed this was weird—a hint of conspiracy theory suggested ulterior motives by unknown forces. Happily, a few commenters set the poster straight with links to sites explaining how the moon works—and how it has worked for the past couple million years.
Seriously!
In conjunction with a project I was working on, I came across several disturbing statistics:
- Back in the day, the reading level demonstrated by James Madison was 21.6.
- Recent Presidents have spoken and written at about a 9th-grade level.
- Since Warren Harding’s presidency in the early 1920s—almost a century ago—no American President has written or spoken above the 12th-grade level.
- The bestselling authors of our time are writing at the 4th-grade level.
- “8 books tie for the lowest score,” a 4.4, just above 4th-grade level. Prolific, well-known authors with huge sales: James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, and Nora Roberts.”
- These three authors have written a combined total of 419 books.
- For more depressing statistics, go here.
Now, I do get it. When you sit down for a cozy read, you aren’t necessarily looking for edification. You’re looking for entertainment, and each of us is unique in what we find funny, what we find annoying, and so on.
BUT…
Even if I’m looking for fun, I’d rather not be stuck with toilet humor and pratfalls—as enjoyable as both of those things are—all the damn time. And I’d like to learn something when I devote hours reading a book, even if that something I learn is that the clayey soil in Georgia will preserve a dead body quite nicely or that all the human blood in the world would fit into about eleven hundred Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Enjoyment is an end unto itself, but if you can add something useful to your repertoire of cocktail-party conversation starters (or stoppers) so much the better, right?
Even Louis L ’amour hangs around a 6th-grade level as far as readability, and if an old western—a venerable genre—tests the metal of a 5th grader, then shouldn’t a modern murder mystery do the same or better?
So, writing longer sentences with compound or compound-complex structures increases the reading level. So does using a few words of three or more syllables. But that’s not the whole story, is it?
Interest level and appropriateness also play a part in a work’s readability level. It’s possible to write something that a 4th grader can read, but that has no interest or is not appropriate for said 4th grader. I mean, you can write a graphic sex scene with short sentences and one-syllable words. In fact, many people make a good living doing just that.
Then, there is the complexity of thought, the organization of the content, the deeper themes and meanings, and other qualities specific to each author and work. Some works can be enjoyed on a variety of levels.
So, are the readability levels of our most-read authors an indication that we are getting dumber? All by themselves, I don’t think so. Those lower reading levels may, in part, reflect the new mediums we use to read, such as social media posts, eBooks, and blogs like this one. These mediums demand brevity and clarity, which short words and short sentences do provide.
In addition, our lifestyles are more fast-paced than those in James Madison’s time. Not all of us have time to ponder a 400-page tome of philosophy every week. Things move fast in the 21st century. If you have only ten minutes to read while the toddler is miraculously absorbed in a toy, you want those ten minutes to count. The material needs to be understandable and clear with the first reading.
I think, as readers, we should demand more than formulaic tales. Read the classics and expect as much thought and nuance in modern works. I mean, those are classics for a reason. Reward authors who write intelligent books with reviews—it’s free but highly valued by authors and readers.
Educators, parents, and grandparents can make a difference by challenging their kids to read the hard stuff and encouraging curiosity. I could write a whole other blog post about how public schools—with their emphasis on right answers instead of investigation and experimentation—are ruining young minds, but I’ll stop.
So, bottom line: I don’t think we are necessarily getting dumber, but one of these days, we might.
What do you think? Is all hope lost? Are we doomed to an Idiocracy situation? Give me hope, if you can.
