Yes, it is Day 6. But please bear with me while I broach a serious subject. We are going to talk about computer literacy as I promised yesterday; but first let’s look at the foundation of this discussion.

Illiteracy is causing irreparable damage to our society. If you think that sounds like an exaggeration, you're wrong. For proof, check out these illiteracy statistics.

Illiteracy Statistics

In a study of 20 'high income' countries, the US ranked 12th on literacy tests. Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their child. A few other shocking facts:

• 50 percent of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level.
• 20 percent of Americans are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level.
• Nearly half of all Americans read so poorly that they cannot find a single piece of information when reading a short publication.

How Illiteracy Affects Job Prospects

• 3 out of 4 people on welfare can't read.
• 20 percent of Americans read below the level needed to earn a living wage.
• 50 percent of the unemployed people who fall between the ages of 16 and 21 cannot read well enough to be considered functionally literate.
• Between 46 and 51 percent of American adults have an income well below the individual threshold poverty level because of their inability to read.

How Illiteracy Affects Society

• 3 out of 5 people in an American prison can't read.
• 85 percent of juvenile offenders have problems reading.
• Approximately 50 percent of Americans read so poorly that they are unable to perform simple tasks such as balancing a checkbook and reading prescription drug labels.
• To determine how many prison beds will be needed in future years, some states actually base part of their projection on how well current elementary students are performing on reading tests. (WOW!)

How Illiteracy Costs Taxpayers

Illiteracy has been proven to cause children to drop out of school. Dropouts cost our nation $240 billion in social service expenditures and lost tax revenues.

Now, if you are still with me…’cause I know I had to step away after initially reading that.

Let us extrapolate how the disparity gap increases with computer literacy or illiteracy. Through our indulgence of not correcting our young people’s grammar and the advent of texting vocabulary, we have helped to create a subculture of illiteracy and poverty that is now entering into the infancy stage of it’s third generation of victims. Progress does not happen in reverse. At the risk of using the word never, I’m going to say we will never go back to using pictographs to communicate. The written language is here to stay. In very much the same way business communication (where money changes hands) will not go back to sending mail through the US postal system for most of their correspondences. Eventually, they won’t even send a fax in the way it was first introduced. Even an initial application for employment will be sent by use of computer.

The world of computer has it’s own language. Of course you have heard it spoken; but similar to when hearing a foreign language that you are unfamiliar with, one usually tunes it out. Though most of the words sound familiar:  HTML. Server, host, domain name, site, link, attachment, browser, Mac, Joomla, platforms, virtual, viral, 2GB, 50MB, flash drive, blogcast, podcast, etc…but can you use them intelligently in a sentence? And I am speaking elementary levels here. If computer literacy is not taken seriously, we will find that we will have created another subculture…this one will be computer illiterate and facing a similar and ever widening disparity gap between those who are computer literate and those who are not and find themselves facing similar hardships.

As for the aforementioned victims (and I use that word “victims” intently), now they will need to learn to read two English languages and they are going to need some help. We will touch back on this. For now there is more work to be done. Tomorrow marks the midway point.