this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
740 points (93.5% liked)
Asklemmy
43970 readers
827 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's only going to get worse. 20% of the US is illiterate. 50% can't read above a 6th grade level.
Read that again.
1 in 2 people can not read above a 6th grade level.
That is a fucking insane statistic.
I believe it.
When I watch TikTok, the video will explain everything extremely clearly, and the comments are FILLED with questions or criticism that were answered or done in the video.
My favourite is when I comment on a Canadian TikTok page about something, and someone else comments "ughhh it's not illegal here and it's $5" and I reply with "what province?" and they respond "Texas". Like bitch, you're on a CANADIAN page, with the person clearly talking about CANADA, and you're talking about something unrelated in Texas telling me that I am wrong?
That is quite insane. You got sources?
Top hit on google: https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statistics#:~:text=Top%2010%20U.S.%20Literacy%20Rate,literacy%20below%20sixth%2Dgrade%20level.
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=223357864c90
Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/
There's a bunch of other studies out there that back that number...It's always generally 20% can't read at all...50% can't do critical analysis of text.
It's really ugly...Those people all vote, and I think it helps explain how the most vile ridiculous demons the R's put out there get 30%+ of the vote. It's extremely hard to refute lies when the person consuming and believing the lie can't read.
Read more about it here. A reminder, if you can't find the sample size then disregard the source.
That site is showing literacy improvement for 4th graders since 2003. It also says "21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022." but then another graph showing "United States 86.0 %" in global ranking of literacy. It's just a hodgepodge of stats being semi-sourced with little to no conext, it even includes Wikipedia as a source.
I'm not saying there's no literacy problems in the US, I just don't know what to make of that site specifically.
And 1 in 5 can't even read!
Cannot read English? Well that makes sense. The US is filled with immigrants and non English speaking citizens
I'll take the average immigrant's reading level over the average conservative's reading level.