I blame the Internet and its lax standards. It makes sense; that seems to be the underlying reason for it.

I know, and then you have those kids who go around talking like they're so much better than everyone else. What's the deal with that.

Don't you like hate like when like people talk like this? Especially in text messages. I dunno how people can stand writing like that, I try to make my texts as short as possible.

I don't use text-talk at all, and I can crack out about 15 words a minute texting on my simple flip-phone. Oh, and it's not a QWERTY keyboard; it's a 1-9 keyboard. (You know, how the number 6 you press once for M, twice for N, and thrice for O? Yeah, that's the keyboard I use.) It's a pretty old phone and the buttons don't work as well as they used to, either.

I do this for two reasons: One, so people can clearly understand what I'm saying, and Two, so I can tell people who text-talk that they have no excuse.

More to the point of the topic, I've noticed a steady decrease in the attention span of people, and I think the fast-paced style of the Internet and other telecommunications have brought this about - heck, ADD is everywhere nowadays. (I don't think I have ADD, but I would not be too surprised if I did.) It has brought around its own set of 'pseudo-standards' - I say pseudo because those standards don't match up really well with real-world standards at all, and people act like what is acceptable on the Internet or in texting or what-have-you is also perfectly acceptable in real-life situations...and most of the time it isn't.

I'm unsure what a good solution is for this. The Internet is a wonderful tool to keep in touch and doing away with it would cause a lot more harm than it does good. A better solution would be to instill in those who use it a certain behavior and appreciation for standards, so I feel. I know some people aren't really prone to short attention spans and such, so for some people they're fine. But they aren't everyone.

...Did that make any sense to anyone or was I just rambling for the last paragraph-and-a-half?

So did I.
The problem is I can't think of a good tl;dr summary to what I said yet.

I thought that I was the only one who believed that was true!

I doubt it's all that. It depends on the teacher. Unlike the vast majority, my English teacher actually cared about the subject at hand; she was incredibly passionate about it. Certain kids in the class weren't appreciative of her efforts to teach us at all. Some teachers are really bad - my History teacher taught us with worksheets - and others, like the one mentioned before, are stellar. Teaching is a hard job, too. When you're a teacher you deal with a lot of crud.



But back on topic. What drives me nuts is how elementary age students are now aware of stuff that's not appropriate for their age. I have a neighbor that I often have conversations with. She's elementary age and she knows every curse word under the sun and uses them when around friends or people like me. For me the absolute worst was "crap", but she is almost graduating and knows words I hadn't ever heard of until eighth grade! Maybe it's just me but I find it... not right.

I had a teacher in 10th grade that was like this. She was very knowledgeable and informative and taught the subject material very well; because of her I've carried my passion for grammar (and with it, my grammar Nazism) with me to the present day. Honestly, I have her to thank largely for how well I write and talk now.


And that's why I am glad I spent most of my life homeschooled.

I had a picture that would go along with the subject at hand but I appear to have lost it...

I thought I was alone on this, but I find this annoying too. Less so on text messages (as most smartphones auto punctuate), but when I'm in a chat environment like Skype or Facebook and someone I talk to is sending brief messages with proper sentences and capitalisations... they come off as having a superiority complex. Just like people who butt into wall posts with snide corrections, well I'm very well aware that "you're" is not spelt ur, it's like some people think that just because they type properly on a social medium they're better than everyone else, which for me isn't the case at all.

In my view though, yeah I do think a lot of kids lack social smarts (probably including myself, don't really classify as a kid no more though) and yeah the Internet probably is to blame for it a little, but I don't think it's a big problem. I just think that everyone's just fighting their own battles, and probably dealing with them the best they can.

RE: this topic, I can't really comment, as I've never met anyone I've found stupid. There are people I know who are lazy, people who are bad at looking at the bigger picture/prioritising, people who are bad at making decisions, and people who are general douches, but I haven't really had to deal with "stupid," (which I'm taking to mean: unable to comprehend instructions and directions) which is probably somewhat strange given I work Customer Service in retail.

[color=cyan]I think strongly that the internet is to blame. I had to take an online class for World History because my teacher didnt teach, he just sat at his desk, no lectures, nothing. Anyways, basically, a conspiraracy theorist mustve did the work on the 9/11 lesson, because according to e20/20, the war on terrorism was fought over oil, al-Qeada didnt do it, and the rest of the imperfections and lies I forgot, because I was resisting from finding an interesting way to destroy the computer. I mean, what if some kid who failed because he failed to pay attention and was dumb as a brick was taught that? Sure, that'll still be practically impossible, but still...
@DP: I hear ya. I usually start speaking properly just to show the bastard off. Because, you know, I'm a dick like that!

A self-righteous one to boot

I remember last year, I went to Party City to get my Halloween costume, and while I was looking at the costumes, there was this 10-year-old girl saying "f***" over and over and over. I jumped because as I was reading the cataloge she girl said something like "wtf is this!?" behind me very loudly. And there were these little 5-year-olds there.


But then again, children in general piss me off

Kids are getting weird these days o_O

I totally agree with you

One day a little kid (12 years old) wanted to fight with me (I'm 26!!! o_o). He was pushing me with his belly and yelled: You got a problem!!! I just pushed it a bit and get out of there. He did this for no reason at all...

Another thing: I used to play Combat Arms, a FPS game

I noticed something:
~Most of the people who play this game are 5 to 10 years old.
-They got a mic, in wich one they won't stop screaming and crying (Very boring)
-They all got the most powerfull stuff and etc. Wich one you can buy only with REAL CASH (Zomg)
-Most of them are playing all the day 7 days per week (They win the most often online awards)

Those kids won't go far in their life... sad.

Sorry for double post!
And this isn't a kid game, it is pretty violent and bloody so thats why i WAS playing this game. xD
When i noticed kids between 5 and 12 years old screamin' in da mic I left the game.
Oh... and for kids who play 7 day the week: They have homeworks to do and they won't learn anything at shooting people.''Those kids won't go far in their life... sad'': One of my friend was doing the same thing... And he has no job because he left school... Cuzof video games. That's why i said that.

I lol'd


No.

That is incredible.

I do agree with Frost, kids are more or less the same as before. But I guess since kids have more freedom of speech nowadays with the interwebs and everything, people are more exposed to the lack of grammar in today's world than before. I guess kids haven't been taught or haven't gone through enough experiences to realize how important it is to use proper grammar and spelling to portray a good image. Also, I think kids may be spoiled by spell check.

And about the Halo thing... well, I can't relate cause I don't play games with voice chat, but I guess kids haven't grasped the idea that these are real people with real problems and lives behind the screen. But that's not always true of course. I've met very intelligent kids.

I guess it's important to not just dwell on this horrible part of society, but to use this knowledge for when we raise kids, so they don't suffer the same fate, you know?

EDIT: Oh, this thread is 2 months old. Sorry about that, hope you guys don't mind. I guess to revive discussion properly, what would be a good way to resolve this issue?

This wasn't even a third of the way down the first page, so it doesn't really matter.

People have terrible vocabularies these days. My 15 year old sister doesn't know what the work 'resolute' means. Among many others. *sigh* What is this world coming to?

Yeah, I know what you mean.
I was watching a video last night that has a massive dose of situational irony in it, and it pertains to this topic. Sort of.
I'll post a link when I find it.
EDIT: It is a bit close to NSFW, but it states why it maybe offensive right in the title.
I found myself nodding in agreement.

Talking to people on the internet has improved my grammar and syntax considerably, actually.