Speech by members of Congress drops a grade level due to conservatives and new members, according to study

Quote:The Sunlight Foundation determined that Congress is talking at nearly a full grade level below the level at which members spoke seven years ago, according to its study of the Congressional Record—the official record of members' proceedings and speech. The foundation applied the Flesch-Kincaid grade level test to congressional conversations and found that today's Congress speaks "at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005," senior fellow Lee Drutman wrote in his analysis. Sunlight also found that the newest as well as the most conservative members of Congress on average speak at the lowest grade level.

Pathetic, it's partly the television effect IMO. Most of it is on a 6th grade level, and I suspect it's done that way on purpose to go hand in hand with that miserable education indoctrination system that seems to be producing a massive amount of stupid sheep.
Like Al Gore said, "We want to have the best educated Americans in the world".

I'm thinking this has something to do with it as well...

Quote:Is Texting Making Us Stupid?

This is likely a problem for middle-aged and older digital immigrants as well. Todays' rapid pace of information constantly assaulting our brains challenges our ability to pay full attention to any one thing. Our laptops, fax machines and instant messages pressure us into quick responses that lead us to sacrifice detail and accuracy. Radio and television announcers speak in time-compressed sentences leaving us with mere ideas of what they have said. Many people are replacing depth and subtlety in their thinking with quick mental facts that only skim the surface. The mental clutter, noise and frequent interruptions that assail most of us further fuel this frenetic cognitive style.

Though we think we can get more done when we divide our attention and multitask, we are not necessarily being more efficient. Studies show that when our brains switch back and forth from one task to another, our neural circuits take a small break in between - a time-consuming process that reduces efficiency. It's not unlike closing down one computer program and booting up another - it takes a few moments. With each attention shift, the brain's frontal lobe executive centers must activate different neural circuits.

Dr. Gloria Mark and associates at the University of California, Irvine, studied the work habits of high-tech office employees and found that each worker spent an average of only 11 minutes per project. Every time a worker was distracted from a task, it took them 25 minutes to return to it. Such distractions and interruptions not only plague our work environments, but they also intrude upon our leisure and family time. The bottom line is that despite people's perception that they are doing more and at a faster pace when they multitask, the brain seems to work better when implementing a single sustained task, one at a time.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brai...-us-stupid

Swamp gas.

I bet Nancy's full of it

Now eat your pees.

(05-22-2012, 04:07 PM)Anonymous Kritter Wrote:  Now eat your pees.

Shouldn't that be drink your pees?









JR, I really don't think they dumb it down for the viewers. There aren't too many people with a 6th grade mentality watching C-Span. I think they are just becoming less intelligent. They certainly act it. Just look at some of the stupid shit they say. Seriously, 10th grade? WTF?

(05-22-2012, 01:07 PM)Octo Wrote:  I'm thinking this has something to do with it as well...

Quote:Is Texting Making Us Stupid?

This is likely a problem for middle-aged and older digital immigrants as well. Todays' rapid pace of information constantly assaulting our brains challenges our ability to pay full attention to any one thing. Our laptops, fax machines and instant messages pressure us into quick responses that lead us to sacrifice detail and accuracy. Radio and television announcers speak in time-compressed sentences leaving us with mere ideas of what they have said. Many people are replacing depth and subtlety in their thinking with quick mental facts that only skim the surface. The mental clutter, noise and frequent interruptions that assail most of us further fuel this frenetic cognitive style.

Though we think we can get more done when we divide our attention and multitask, we are not necessarily being more efficient. Studies show that when our brains switch back and forth from one task to another, our neural circuits take a small break in between - a time-consuming process that reduces efficiency. It's not unlike closing down one computer program and booting up another - it takes a few moments. With each attention shift, the brain's frontal lobe executive centers must activate different neural circuits.

Dr. Gloria Mark and associates at the University of California, Irvine, studied the work habits of high-tech office employees and found that each worker spent an average of only 11 minutes per project. Every time a worker was distracted from a task, it took them 25 minutes to return to it. Such distractions and interruptions not only plague our work environments, but they also intrude upon our leisure and family time. The bottom line is that despite people's perception that they are doing more and at a faster pace when they multitask, the brain seems to work better when implementing a single sustained task, one at a time.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brai...-us-stupid

Texting is ruining our communication skills and has all but destroyed our spelling ability. I have been saying as much about the spelling for years. Lately, though, I have been noticing a growing trend of people composing sentences that make absolutely no sense. It is as if they remember some words, but not their meanings,and decide to put them together. I will read the sentence, and then re-read it and then I will think, "WTF (pun) is that supposed to mean? It's just random words." The odd part is when it is in a comments section after an article and other people respond to it as if they understood it.



Thank God I don't text.