I too have encountered the claim about kids not being able to read an analog clock. I have also heard complaints that kids cannot tie laced shoes with so many shoes being Velcro straps. Both strike me a more urban myth than actual cases.

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A moment of carelessness, a lifetime of regret.
A lifetime of carelessness, a moment of regret.

I'm not so sure it's myth. I was at a book store & saw 3 teenagers trying to read a book. Wasn't going so well.

Perhaps the text was in Chinese?

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A moment of carelessness, a lifetime of regret.
A lifetime of carelessness, a moment of regret.

Nope, an English Young Adult novel. Native English speakers from their conversation, but struggling to read without the help of the others. Quite sad.

It would be interesting to know the title and if the said teens had any general learning difficulty. Relatedly, when I tell people of any age perhaps under 30 that I generally read about an hour a day I'm looked at like I'm a space alien. It seems best to not say what I read or that I have several hundred recorded adult continuing education lectures.

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A moment of carelessness, a lifetime of regret.
A lifetime of carelessness, a moment of regret.

Asked my niece about this, and she said, "Yeah, that was So-and-so," rolling her eyes (and So-and-so is old enough to be her parent - more evidence that this isn't age-related). Apparently on some texting formats you can hold your finger on the text you want to reply to, and it'll give you a popup with some choices, including "liking" the text in question. Well, that's one more thing I didn't know about, so I tried it myself, but my format's popup doesn't have this particular "like" option - but I'm unlikely to use any of it in any case, so no love lost there. Anyway, So-and-so does this "like" thing by way of a (supposedly time-saving) positive reply open to any number of interpretations dependent on context; only this time context didn't help. It simply seemed to me that So-and-so was oddly admiring my choice of words (if one word can be considered plural), and I didn't think to read it as the thanks it was meant to be. In all fairness, it doesn't read like "Thanks" at all, so I think I may be excused for my intuition not extending that far. Oh, well. At least now I know what some of these family members mean when they do this. Maybe.

Turns out that like me, my niece is big on the notion that whatever one's abilities, literacy is something worth exercising, rather than skipping it at any opportunity. So it's refreshing to know that this stance is not entirely a generational matter. We both agreed that if for no better reason than good old form's sake, even "thx" would have been preferable to the blurry "Liked 'Sure.'" The better clarity of "thx" goes without saying. But of course I won't be beating people up over it; I'll just have to do my best with it and hope I get it right.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

One interpretation might be that since "the lot of us" were texted, that it is an acknowledgement that you are agreeing to bring the ice, and thus others can disregard, and your "Sure" is accepted.

On Facebook, which apparently you decline to use, the "Like" button is commonly used by the thread originator to mark those messages which they have read (so they can keep track as other messages come in from other responders).

This is true.


Good to know if ever I go there. Remember, though (just in case anyone got distracted), that this was an ongoing string of phone text messages, not a Facebook conversation online. In this case, the person who "liked" my text response is married to the one who asked for ice, and my niece was pretty confident - unhesitating, even - in her interpretation of the "like"; it seemed that she was well accustomed to how the other ticked in that regard, which makes sense, because even though they're not parent and child, they're close enough to know each other well. I'm the only one in my immediate family (other than Mom) who's not on Facebook, so I don't know the ins and outs of it, but even so, judging by what you say it seems to me that the texting-version "like" really can't be used in quite the same way as on Facebook, so it takes on a different utility. It's all terra incognita to me in the end, though. But I will say that when I encounter it during family texting sessions, it always seems to be in reference to things that people actually like, such as a cute picture or good news, and it's not necessarily from the thread's originator - and indeed, in this case it was not. There are only a couple or so of us who routinely do it and it's always baffled me to some extent, precisely because it's not Facebook, and it made me wonder if they were so habituated to the custom that they brought it along, maybe to feel more at home or something.

They would probably be a lot happier if I joined them on Facebook instead of them having to resort to texting to accommodate me, but I just can't bring myself to go there. Maybe some day, but I don't foresee it; with C&F I already spend enough time online as it is.


I suppose it's possible, but since everyone was already on the same page (it being a conference text session), once I hit "send" they would all have gotten my "Sure" message, and that would have settled it: Nano's bringing the ice. We don't overburden the little things by standing on ceremony. So it makes more sense to me that the "liked" text was unlikely to be a notification for the rest to stand down, and was instead just a hard-to-read (for me) way of saying "Thanks".

But who knows. A big pitfall of this desolate style is its vagueness. It may have saved time for the sender, but even now it's still wasting a lot of mine in trying to pin down its meaning. For that matter, none of us seems to know yet, with any certainty, what it meant. Is that communication? It's not dialogue, that's for sure. All it does is leave me saying, "Okay, so you like this. That's nice, I suppose. But what does it have to do with anything?" Guess I'll have to ask the sender directly for their meaning after all, then. Terribly messy, that. I hate messy.

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Embrace your otherworldly status. You'll probably even find some of them coming to you at times for wisdom.

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

I did encounter that time or two. At a former job a coworker had some concerns about her college choices and was advised by another coworker to ask me about it because I was, "very wise." And a while ago at my current job a coworker introduced me to a new hire and told him to pay attention to me because, "he's very intelligent." These seem odd to me. I do not have a college degree and minimal post high school education.

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A moment of carelessness, a lifetime of regret.
A lifetime of carelessness, a moment of regret.

Although it can't hurt, an academic background can't be depended on to put a head on one's shoulders; learning is not the same as intelligence, which is innate. However, even intelligence may be blocked or misused by self-deception or environmental factors. Some people already see straight regardless of education, some may learn it though experience, and some may never at all. I have known some highly educated people who I would never recommend as a source for guidance beyond the limit of their fields.

BTW, "seeing straight" doesn't mean you have all the answers: it means you recognize when you don't. What it does mean is that you value reason before ego or fear. Just my 2 cents ...

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Nah. It means realising that I'm right.

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"Only connect!"

https://youtu.be/ezbWVysJAOY
https://tapm.bandcamp.com/

Well, there IS that.

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

From an article about a possible Bigfoot sighting:



Big deal. I see human-likes every day.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Was watching an old installment of Good Eats last night, and the infoblurb in the guide read "The culminary harmony of stew".

How reassuring to know that, in the end, all stew will be harmonious. Takes the pressure off.

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano