To the Editor:
Thanks to Frank Bruni for his column on the way Facebook warps our worldview. These days, given the near universal penetration of social media, I’m encouraged every time I see an article about the enormous effects (largely harmful, I’m afraid) that they are having on us.
As a professor of literature, I’m particularly concerned about the effect these media are having on the ability of students to process difficult, emotionally and intellectually complex texts. As Mr. Bruni notes, the preference engines of social media lead us away from opinions that are unfamiliar to us. I fear that the decline of complex reading ability means that even if students are able to access diverse opinion, they’re less able to understand it.
I think a connection can be made to the astounding success of Donald Trump. As a lover of textual ingenuity, I’m most struck, in Mr. Trump’s speeches, by the mind-numbing syntactic simplicity of his utterances, by the lack of logical coordination and subordination, and by the repetition of basic subject-verb-object sentences with little in the way of coherent connection.
Our social media, and now our politics, are leading away from the complex syntax that allows for full living and thinking.
NICK WILLIAMS
Poland, Ind.
Note from KBJ: Because we all know, especially after the past eight years, that talkin' good makes one a good president.
