The headline is misleading. The article says almost half "can’t read for their age". It's not saying they are illiterate. It's an inflammatory headline as written and the language does not come from the article.

Also - genuine question for anyone with a clue - what percent of high school age kids do you think have smartphones in, say, East Oakland?

> Also - genuine question for anyone with a clue - what percent of high school age kids do you think have smartphones in, say, East Oakland?

Answer: Effectively all of them. Source: worked in inner city schools for a bit in areas at least as poor as East Oakland.

Can confirm - Mom works with inner city youth and bussed children with a number of East Bay school districts

Indeed. I sometimes suspect that those who've never spent any appreciable time around or with the lower classes fall back on Dickensian notions of the pauper. They might be surprised by their conspicuous spending habits and preferences devoted to the acquisition latest gadgets, flashiest sneakers, and gaudiest logo-emblazoned clothing. Failing to wear and own such things because, for example, your family is saving for or spending on education or something actually worth spending money on, is a faux pas.

Go outside and look around. Just use your powers of observation and take a look. If you are a typical neolib you live in a nice area. So how about you hop on some public transport and visit your local county hospital ER.

I asked about high school aged kids, not hospitals, but thanks for the oddly hostile comment anyway. Fun to be a dick to strangers, huh?

My experience with underclass whites is they access the internet exclusively through phones and seem almost unaware of computers and wired internet access. It’s an example of “the poor pay more and get less.”

All of them.

Phones are the new high-top sneakers. HS teens would rather be caught with pooped pants than not have a smartphone --even if not the latest and greatest.

"Can't read for their age" is the key part. Without specifying the numbers from years prior is not very relevant in my opinion. When I was in high school, it seemed like most everyone's reading/writing ability was between a 6th-8th grade level according to these scores. Made me wonder if the assigned scores were just too ambitious.

By the way, I don't consider Internet access as useful to literacy as it did to millenials. Millenials had to deal with a text-based internet for online entertainment, but late Gen Z-Gen A's Internet is videos and images with taglines on social media.

I am the only person I know who texts in full, complete sentences and statements, without abbreviating anything. I use all punctuation correctly, as much as I can. It's not a conscious thing, it's just what I do.

I know of almost nobody else who does this. Shorthand is encouraged, acronyms abound, nobody actually gives a shit if you misspell something, punctuation is thrown to the wind with reckless abandon.

I don't see how texting could put an end to illiteracy. If anything, it promotes it.

Language is fluid and constantly evolving. Literacy[0] shouldn't mean whether you follow some set of punctuation rules at all times, but whether you can infer the meaning and intent of messages, and whether you can compose messages that allow recipients to do the same, both without much effort or discomfort on all sides. Acronyms and punctuation are just tools to this end. If others 'get' what you're trying to say and consider it appropriate language in different contexts relevant to your life (you want the ability to use different language in professional vs personal settings, to actually use established grammatical rules in formal settings,...), then I'd say you're literate. Using emojis, acronyms or writing things like 'Hey u coming?' in appropriate settings doesn't negate that imho. Acronyms are in fact extremely common in professional settings too, and emojis increasingly so, at least in my experience.

Slightly provocative question, given what you've said ("without abbreviating anything"), would you actually spell out the acronym RSVP in a formal invitation? It's very common eg in Britain, it's definitely considered good form, and spelling it out would just cause confusion since it's actually a French term that most people probably wouldn't recognize (répondez, s'il vous plaît). What about i.e. (ita est)? E.g. (exemplum gratum, although some might argue it can also stand for example given)? You might say you just avoid those terms, which is possible, but I have a suspicion that you're just fooling yourself. Since you're on this site, I might also ask whether you always spell out the Domain Name System (DNS) and similar terms? If you did, you'd actually make your messages less understandable to most audiences, detracting from your literacy I'd argue.

[0] My opinion here, I'm not a linguist, so if this clashes with established definitions of literacy, my apologies.

Edit: I actually had a look, and of course you are fooling yourself. According to your comment history, you actually use abbreviations all the time, including ones that are unknown to me (ITAD company, SEE), making whatever point you were trying to make lost on me without research effort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35273712#35276691

I actually agree with you, I was leaning more towards functional literacy. In the sense that yes, we're literate because we can understand what someone means when they say, "sry my b", but I don't understand how someone can expect people who grow up communicating like that to be functionally literate and capable of understanding, say, as mentioned elsewhere in this chain, a court order, a lease you sign with your landlord, or what is actually being said in a news article. That functional bit is, in point of fact, more of what the article is about.

Edit: You took my comment too literally and missed the overall point. I didn't even intend to judge those who don't text like I do, hence my highlighting that it's not a conscious effort on my part. And, yes, I suppose that quite common acronyms are fine - I had hoped that it was obvious that I was referring to less common acronyms, but perhaps failed there. But thanks for kinda painting me like a grammar snob?

Yeah, it's probably a rather general phenomenon that skills transfer is (unfortunately) much less effective than one might hope. Just like practicing Sudoku solving doesn't do much to increase your overall cognitive abilities or problem solving skills (there are studies on that, didn't care to look them up now), one probably shouldn't expect too much carry-over from chat messages to other reading/writing tasks with different requirements.

It seems they can read and write, but not the English you’re familiar with.

Of course, the question is whether that language is as expressive as ‘old English’.

I would guess it is simpler, but on the other hand, I know almost nothing of that language, and I know for sure it has features I can’t read, such as most expressions made up of multiple emoticons

Seems like they can read your message just fine and type back a reply that you can understand.

Literacy attained.

Literacy sufficient to understand the terms of an apartment lease, a car loan, a court order?

Agreed that reading and writing are two different skills.

Thank you for this clarification. :)

I would stop being friends with someone if they texted like this. The entirety of my friends, coworkers (when I was working), and family write properly while texting.

Seems like a bit of an overreaction

I never said I found anything inherently wrong with it, I just observed a difference between myself and others. I imagine you'd be cutting a lot of people out of your life over something so innocuous.

> I don't see how texting could put an end to illiteracy. If anything, it promotes it.

Just a guess, people used to be able to get by with a very basic level of literacy, i.e. label recognition. My cousin was this way when he finished school ~20 years ago.

Now you can't get by like that very easily because text based communication is so prevalent. If you have friends they'll be texting you, so you're pretty much forced into a learning situation for sociality, whereas in the past that was only happening at the speech level.

Re the shorthand stuff, (a) you probably just didn't realise how illiterate people were in the past because they couldn't write anything for you to read, so it's a genuine step up. (b) I actually encounter that shorthand less now, and more from adults who grew up with expensive and limited SMS.

Dictation is very common. Emoji heiroglyphics and phonetic spellings as well.

I think the article is probably referring to functional illiteracy, e.g. someone who can understand, "Be there in 5" on their smartphone but can't read a news article and summarize the main point.

Fair question.

The nuance is that most can read, but not "at their age level"

Quote:

> In 2021, 47% of Black students in SFUSD that are high school juniors don’t even come close to meeting English-language proficiency. [...] That means for every one of two Black students leaving San Francisco high schools they can’t read for their age.

>The nuance is that most can read, but not "at their age level"

I wonder what percentage are learning English as a 2nd language.

The problem I see with using "black" as a descriptor is there are recent African immigrants, 1+ gen. immigrants, Afro latinos, descendants of enslaved Americans, etc... put under one umbrella.

How can anyone pinpoint why a % of "black" students have reading issues at similar rates to hispanic students when the statistics pool black people from vastly different backgrounds together?

The author cites the pew study [0] that claims less than 10% of the "US black population" is foreign born.

I have no idea how things stack in the Bay Area, but I figure that answers your question and implies your nuance likely wouldn't change anything.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/04/09/a-risin...

>The author cites the pew study [0] that claims less than 10% of the "US black population" is foreign born.

Yes, when I saw that it was clear to me that being "foreign born" said very little about the population. For example, English can still be a 2nd or 3rd language for recent immigrants with US born children, especially in California and Texas.

>I figure that answers your question and implies your nuance likely wouldn't change anything.

I disagree, immigrants are most likely unevenly distributed.

You're not disagreeing with me. I explicitly raised the possibility of uneven distribution in my reply.

That said, you could probably hunt for some school-level stats in the bay area and make an educated guess.

>You're not disagreeing with me. I explicitly raised the possibility of uneven distribution in my reply.

I misread, thanks for clarifying.

Think about the vocabulary you use shooting the shit with your friends. It's not that wide of a vocabulary. And there are plenty of abbreviations/shorthand in texting that condense more complex concepts/feelings/ideas into a few characters. Plus, more kids than ever just facetime one another these days rather than text. Literacy is more than just being able to decipher characters into words and ideas, it's being able to read several paragraphs in a row and comprehend what they amount to in intellectual or narrative terms.

> how is this possible in the era of smartphones?

If the only reading is app button labels, slang tweet burns, or media approved slogans of the week, why would you expect them to develop any meaningful vocabulary?

Unless you're texting friends who, themselves, can barely read and write...

Plus, texting has always featured slang, abbreviations, lack of punctuation, shortened spelling, etc. Not the best to learn from, perhaps.

You don't really need real reading skills to use TikTok, Youtube, call or send voice messages.

I know some people who the government considers illiterate that manage to post on FB, they just don't really use punctuation or proper grammar. Its painful to read and gives me second hand embarrassment but they don't even care.

idk lowkey seems like when u txt with yr besties its not hella similar to Moby Dick or a college essay thass on some fire Noam Chomsky game u feel me?

frfr ong

(Anecdotally, almost everyone I know who texts like this is very well educated and absolutely capable of writing in full, grammatical sentences — they just choose not to in these situations.)

Sheeeesh, No cap fr

> how is this possible in the era of smartphones?

communicate through emoji and stickers?