I agree (without real evidence) that the premium here on clear writing style, of the sort acceptable (at least as a first draft) in professionally published media printed on paper (or with roots in printed media), is probably a turn-off for SOME youth.
But then I wonder: Do people really develop skills in, and taste for, clear writing as they get older? Isn’t this something you either develop in your teens (or maybe college years, at the latest), and retain your whole life, or else you never do?
If poor writing skills really do correlate with, say, under-30-year-olds, then logically one of the following must be true:
Many people do in fact develop good writing skills well after their high school and college years. Who teaches them, and what their motivation is (gainful employment?), I’m not sure.
Young people NOW (i.e., circa 2005-2015) happen to, overall, have poor writing skills, and they’ll never learn good ones. If this is true, then good writing skills are disappearing, period, except among a small cadre of people (reporters, professors, authors) who get paid to write, especially to write things which are still printed on paper.
Typical youth-skewed Twitter, Facebook, etc.-speak actually IS “good writing” in a broader sense. It has its own rules, its own ways of expressing ideas clearly. Its unacceptability in print media (and the Dope) is akin to the situation with, say, Black English as a spoken dialect in many professional situations (yes, Black English has just as many rules and clear, expressive features as Standard English).
I really doubt that #3 is true. Surely there is something about having to compose a sentence in traditionally acceptable (printable) English which forces the brain to slow down and clarify what it wants to convey. But I might be wrong about this.
Youth today ARE generally capable of composing “good English” sentences, but they sense a clear divide between realms where this is appropriate or necessary (certain emails in professional settings, homework essays, most things composed on Word and printed on paper or sent to someone as a PDF), and realms where it is not (anything that involves typing a message online which is then sent to someone, or some public forum, immediately – including most emails).
Thus, the odd thing about the Dope (in their eyes) is that it operates like something in the second realm, but values the kind of writing they see as restricted to the first realm.
They’re right – it IS odd. After seven years on the Dope, I still haven’t quite gotten used to composing more-or-less Word-realm text in a more-or-less conversational context. Emails, for me, share this oddness a little bit, but not much, both because I don’t usually try to compose sentences quite so carefully in them, and because I don’t expect such prompt responses as I do with the Dope, so emails are less “conversational.”
Reddit is not a forum or message board, but a group of them, combined with a comments section. It is fundamentally different than this site, and comparing us to it is meaningless. The SDMB would at best be a couple of subreddits. Of course it’s going to be smaller than Reddit as a whole.
The lack of flashiness does definitely keep away people who like flashiness. And, yes, the demographic that likes flashiness skews younger. So it is inherently a part of the reason that young people don’t come here. It’s not the whole reason, but it definitely is one, and pretending like it isn’t is silly.
I was 23 when I came here, and I felt absolutely no anti-youth prejudice. And I’ve never seen it. It’s always about other things. Those who think there is an anti-youth prejudice are the ones equating flashiness and improper grammar with youth.
And that last one is important. Reddit, as much as it can be generalized, is not such a stickler for those things. It embraces the change in language. And it was a new way of doing things when it was created. And the constant creation of subreddits keeps the new coming in. We at this board prefer constancy while kids more often crave the new and different.
And I for one am glad such a place exists. I’ve been here five years–longer than any other site. The lack of change brings a feeling of home that every other forum I’ve found severely lacks. Even though now I find myself exploring elsewhere, it’s nice to have a place to come back to where I don’t have to worry about things being too different.
And lots of new people, especially when largely from one demographic, changes entire communities, often to being completely unrecognizable.
You are correct that you lack real evidence and in fact, the evidence as such shows that you are wrong. Textspeak, which you so decry is in decline and has been for a while. As our technology has improved and phones have developed stronger and better word-guessing algorithms, input fields have increased in size and full keyboards have become prominent, so too has the use of textspeak decreased among teenagers and young adults. The evidence also suggests that there’s no to a slight positive correlation between texting and literacy. I know that for my cohort and those younger than me, the "hey wat’s up wher r u " kind of writing is almost universally mocked as being the sort of thing Steve Buscemi’s character on 30 Rock might have said.
I think, too, that maybe it’s not so much a “chronological age” issue and more of an “online age” (that is, how long you’ve been online) issue. I came online in 1996, when the WWW was still quite young. I started teaching myself HTML and Web design soon after I encountered the Internet, and at that time the common wisdom was that “bells & whistles” were necessary to draw attention to your Web site. Hence, flashing GIFs and sound effects everywhere. Even my stepfather, who was in his late fifties at the time, thought bells & whistles were the way to go. In 1996, he was as much of a “kid” on the Internet as I was.
It took some time for the “content is king” mindset to take over, with its idea that the presentation shouldn’t distract from the message. My own personal Web site design has gotten simpler (in appearance) over time. So I think that, as your “online age” increases, you learn that simpler is better, and your main concern is the content being delivered. Those whose “online age” is still young, though, regardless of their real chronological age, are still impressed with bells & whistles. Just look at all that flashing crap your older relatives who just got online like to forward to everybody in their e-mail address book. They’re attracted to the same flashiness the “kids” like.
Excellent points, and thanks for the update. Makes sense to me.
But… I didn’t mean to just refer to textspeak, but also to the writing style (which seems to usually be correlated to a THINKING style) seen, for example, in many YouTube comments. I don’t think these people are being hindered by mere technology, but rather by something more fundamental.
The SDMB is hardly unique in encouraging relatively “good” writing styles, though. Even most Travelocity hotel reviews, and many Amazon product revires, are well written. But Travelocity, and maybe Amazon, surely skews “old”. And they both have some moderated filter, IIRC.
I joined 13 and a third years ago, which is precisely ¼ of my age at present. Now I can’t imagine how I survived the first ¾ of my life without the Dope.
I’m 23 and been lurking since I was 18-ish. I also read the Chicago Reader a ton in high school. We liked to giggle about the kinky personals they used to have. They recently removed those from the print edition, and I’m willing to bet their entire remaining youth readership left with them. Anyway, I followed the url from Cecil’s columns over here because I thought they were funny and wanted to see more. I really only came on the board when I was running out of interesting columns to read. Honestly, I know almost no one my age who likes to read for pleasure as much as I do. Long-ass blocks of text on the internet are not super-appealing.
Also, I did tend to slink away for months whenever someone has called me on some bullshit, too.
