The situation with literacy in the USA does more to reveal exactly where and what we are far better than any other arguments about our wealth and society. We have a really big fucking problem here.
21% of adults in this country are FUNCTIONALLY ILLITERATE. This is mind-melting for the “richest nation on Earth.” We have nearly a quarter of our population who know how read words as necessary to survive but cannot string together text to form coherent narratives or even pictures in their heads. They can text with emojis and monosyllables but are deeply insecure about not being able to comprehend longer paragraphs and as a result rage against notions of logic and reason and fact-checking. This is what functional illiteracy means and we’ve all encountered it, and this is where much of our science-denial and irrational beliefs are coming from.
The situation with literacy in the USA does more to reveal exactly where and what we are far better than any other arguments about our wealth and society. We have a really big fucking problem here.
21% of adults in this country are FUNCTIONALLY ILLITERATE. This is mind-melting for the “richest nation on Earth.” We have nearly a quarter of our population who know how read words as necessary to survive but cannot string together text to form coherent narratives or even pictures in their heads. They can text with emojis and monosyllables but are deeply insecure about not being able to comprehend longer paragraphs and as a result rage against notions of logic and reason and fact-checking. This is what functional illiteracy means and we’ve all encountered it, and this is where much of our science-denial and irrational beliefs are coming from.
https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now