We don’t need no stinkin’ literacy

[Cyrano]

Voice recognition software has been around for some time and is becoming ever more sophisticated. Many who have difficulty typing are pouncing on it and why not? Why struggle with a keyboard when the spoken word can instantly be turned into the printed word.

Newer voice software even negates the need for a mouse. All you have to do is tell the computer what you want to do. For example, just say “email,” dictate the contents, say “send” and you’re done.

How long do you suppose it will be before those at the receiving end are “too busy” to read an email? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to have it automatically read out loud? I assume that software that does this is under development, if not already available.

Call me a Luddite, but I find this “progress” disturbing. Taken to its logical conclusion, it would negate the need for writing or reading for children being born today. (Of course, there would have to be an elite corps of people who retain those skills so they could produce further developments for mankind.)

It seems self-apparent that writing and reading involves far more thought than speaking and listening. I believe that the loss of writing and reading skills would drastically reduce human beings’ ability to think -- and therefore to reason.

Four or five hundred years ago, very few people were able to read and write. It’s fair to say that the invention of the moveable-type printing press produced wide-spread literacy and essentially led to The Age of Reason, The Enlightenment and The Renaissance. Illiteracy is a gift to would-be oppressors.

If the vast majority of humans were unable to read and write, we would return to an age in which 1% of wealthy barons controlled the other 99% -- the peasants. We’re almost there now thanks to the Koch brothers and their ilk, Republican wingnuts, and the ignorant people who vote for them. The ability to communicate with each other through the written word is crucial to our ability to push back and establish a more equitable system. Not to mention that they are basic skills of an advanced, civilized society.

To sum up this rant, I’m always skeptical of new “conveniences” that effectively encourage people not to think. The results of non-thought are apparent among voters who swallow what’s served up by Fox “News” and Rush Limbaugh.

(Note: Voice recognition software is a blessing for countless thousands of people with disabilities and they are not who I’m talking about here.)

[coalition_unwilling]

1. I wish I could rec this OP more than once. Reading by its very nature

encourages contemplation. I cannot fathom my life without it.

[glowing]

2. Seeing that people learn differently, I'd say that reading and writing will remain.

If someone just told me what to do, i.e. instructions on doing something, it would go right over my head... I need the diagram or to see it written to get my head around what is going on.

Also, in an office environment, could we seriously have everyone talking into a device to dictate our needs? Now, say you are in a car driving and need directions... It is much better to talk into a system to help you navigate and not take one's eyes off the road while doing so. (Siri on the newer version of the iPhone 4 would be handy in such a case). I don't think reading and writing are going anywhere. If it does, it will be past my death.

[Cyrano]

4. The privatizing of education (and everything else) is

doing immeasurable harm. My guess is that children's reading and writing skills are suffering due to "No Child Left Behind" and the Republican's rabid fund cutting for public education.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. " Let us read ,let us dance ,these two amusements

can do the world no harm " Voltaire

[saras]

5. Frederick Douglass thinks illiteracy is slavery..

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/06.html

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would ~spoil~ the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.

[Cyrano]

7. If Frederick Douglass were around today, he would

understand the aims of the GOP -- especially the tea baggers. And he would instantly grasp that those aims go far beyond the enslavement of blacks.

[MineralMan]

6. Voice recognition software has many useful functions.

That said, it's not as easy to use as you'd think, nor as advertised. For those who have health problems that limit their ability to use a keyboard, it's hugely valuable. For those who can use a keyboard, it's usually more trouble than it's worth, and actually can take more time to use than needed to simply type what you want to say. Further, punctuation, paragraphing, formatting, and software commands all complicate the process.

By the same token, text to speech software is also very valuable to people who have serious vision problems. For everyone else, it is more trouble than it is worth. None of this software produced properly inflected speech, and mispronunciations interfere with understanding. Still, it is incredibly useful for people who really need it.

Imagine an office setting where everyone in the office is dictating verbally what they are writing and listening to a disembodied voice speaking the material they should be reading. Offices are noisy and annoying enough as it is.

I don't see either technology replacing current practices for quite some time.

[Cyrano]

9. I believe the technology will improve very quickly if

the powers that be understand that an illiterate society is more easily controlled and subjugated.

Regarding noisy office environments, think of the floor of the NY stock exchange. Everyone is screaming at once, yet the business of business goes on.

And as I said at the end of the OP, this technology is a blessing for those with disabilities.

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. I frightened myself the other day when I went to write a note in a card.

My handwriting has become horrid, thanks to excessive keyboarding. While i think voice recognition has good points, as you noted, I agree that it is encouraging people to think less.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I own it, and I will tell you what.

It is great when I cannot type... I mean physically cannot type. Also those with things like Dyslexia who could never spell, benefit from it.

So are you telling me when my hands physically cannot type for real reasons, like recently with tennis elbow, where the DOCTOR ordered me to NOT type, means I should not avail myself of that?

Also you are confusing not thinking with a lack of ability to use a keyboard. I know of several best selling authors, people I hardly would call not thinking, who use these things.

Oh and one last thing, you are off by more than just a mile on this rant. First time I miss the unrec feature, so consider this "unrecced"

[Cyrano]

11. Please read the last line of the OP

I believe this technology is a blessing for anyone who has a handicap that makes reading or writing impractical or impossible.

I went through school with dyslexia and I find that it forced me to carefully focus and concentrate on everything far more than those who didn't have it. I have overcome it to a large degree, although I still have problems with numbers.

And I am emphatically not saying that those who can't use a keyboard can't think.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Yes, but you are still willing to think

that it reduces literacy. I would say radio and TV and movies do far more damage to literacy than a device USED to produce words on a page. That is the ultimate goal of Dragon and other voice recognition systems. And there are studies that do show that TV has an effect on the mind, which using Dragon does not... MRIs and shit like that. We KNOW TV actually has an effect for people to be able to PAY ATTENTION... and that after fifteen minutes the brain activity is similar to going to sleep. We know this FROM STUDIES. So you want to be a luddite about something that reduces literacy, wrong target. Go for your TV and throw it out.

What it might reduce is NOT literacy, but an ability TO SPELL.

As is as a society we no longer encourage people to spell.

But this technology, not only here to stay, but I HOPE my next computer has it at the level of the OS... yes both Windows and Mac do, but it is all but functional... I mean functional, and where I do not have to go into the guts to get it working either... like yes SIRI in a way.

Here on the effect of TV

http://www.cracked.com/article_18856_6-shocking-ways-tv-rewires-your-brain.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-perlmutter-md/television-and-the-develo_b_786934.html

[roody]

12. Did you read the OP?