Mongrammed Plastic Cups

Oggi ho letto un bel editoriale (come al solito) di Giovanni Sartori sul Corriere della Sera (" Donkeys and uneven", 22 / 3) which, by the squawking wriggling creepy newspaper on the elections, faces the problem of the progressive "illiteracy" of the Italian people. The figure is part dall'allarmante that 70% of Italians are returning an illiterate, unable to understand a text that has more complexity than that offered by the Yellow Pages. The problem, in addition to gravity in and of itself, gives a useful key for interpreting the spread of populism on the right (but not only) and its success turnout and lively squares mezz'Europa.

The problem does not seem to afflict only our increasingly decrepit boot, although in a a German magazine (can not remember the name, heck!) It turns out that Germany complains the same lack of young players, and even a high level of real illiterate, not even able to read the labels of the water. Sartori goes further, however, not limited pitiless analysis of the phenomenon, but finding "the" ultimate culprit (who joins with other accomplices, such as poor schooling and pedagogical novismo): refers to the development of technology ' information. It is she who has made all of us are unable to follow a logical thread of thought for more than two sentences, the hurried search for information are always new and ever more "Easily used", we have sacrificed the weight of reasoning and depth on the altar of multitasking.

Also this thesis does not taste the original, although, as pointed out Vaughan Bell in an article in State (and reported on International No. 837) that our ability to reflect and concentration had been considered endangered since dall'apparsa the press in 1455 (it refers to the same Sartori in his article), then after the problem has revived with the emergence of radio, television, cell phone text messages with their ... well, any appearance of anything that came out of all proportion to speed up our ability to transmit thoughts, words and knowledge, sound the alarm.

issues that I believe will materialize at this point are 2: 1-

is true what it claims Sartori?

2 - even supposing that what Sartori says is true, how to reconcile the much acclaimed rising power of citizens / users, due to the use of tools such as instant and free sharing web with stupidity "the sovereign people feared the political scientist just because of the use of these same means?

you declare immediately that the first question I can not give a definitive answer. The aforementioned article by Bell wanted to be a refutation of the theory also supported by Editoriale Corriere. As a double to bring the results of several studies (does not specify which) where it was argued that the Internet had a negative influence on our brains - unlike the TV-gloss and noting that, as always in history, technological advances have been welcomed, especially by the elderly population and therefore conservative, as an instrument of corruption of young minds. do not know if this is true, I claw and neurological research, sociological and psychological, that can not be in its infancy. What I can say from personal experience, is that my level of patience in the face of a written text has been reduced a lot, to almost disappear in the case of newspapers, which now reduces me to read only the page titles on-line; search engines, the wikienciclopedie, the multitude of opinions "cooked", they also filed a part of my passion for finding meaning in a text, spell checkers have freed us from the burden of ' education and grammar language tools fatigue of translation, inoltre, guardando non solo al mio caso, ho notato che la conoscenza è divenuta sempre più nozionistica e meno di spessore.

Rispondere alla seconda domanda, essendo questa orfana di una risposta alla prima, apparirebbe impresa un po’ ardua se non paradossale. Anche in questo caso galleggio nel dubbio. Mi limiterò ad osservare, come spesso in altre sedi ho fatto, che il web, con il suo potere di renderci tutti dei suoi creatori ( empowerment qualcuno lo definirebbe), ha moltiplicato le voci nel coro dell’informazione fino ad un livello incontrollabile, senza che un necessario meccanismo di controllo affidabile si sviluppasse per poter fare da filtro alla “messe mess "that flood the network (an interesting debate on the subject, about wikipedia, you can find him reading the article by Richard Waters, at the International 835).

So, how to build a valid opinion of the world around us if the person who "knows" has the same degree of respectability to those who "think they know"?

short, these are the dilemmas, which in turn opens more windows on several related issues.

I Like, stimulated by THAT ADDRESS THEIR CONCERNS THAT YOU INTERNET USERS, ESPRIMESTE YOUR OPINION HERE, MAYBE GIVE AN ANSWER TO THE TWO BASIC QUESTIONS.

Gianluca Frattini