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Intelligence
It’s Not Just Your Imagination: Spelling is Getting Worse

Intelligence

It’s Not Just Your Imagination: Spelling is Getting Worse

Jan 26, 2007By Michael Stoner

So I’m not surprised to read that a new study on the digital family sponsored by Nickelodeon reveals this:

Being a good speller is no longer felt necessary by 27 percent of parents and 21 percent of kids. Twenty-six percent of parents and 25 percent of kids believe it’s no longer necessary to be able to use a printed dictionary. The use of sites like MapQuest and Google Maps makes 20 percent of parents and 21 percent of kids think map skills on paper are no longer necessary.

Not too surprising. Let’s put this in perspective: a couple of generations ago, if I’d lived where I do, I would have needed to know a lot of skills that I don’t need now. Like how to cut down a tree, for example. On the other hand, to work effectively within an organization like mStoner and for most other businesses, one needs exceptional communications skills. The ability to spell is fundamental. So parents (and kids) need to be reminded-apparently pretty often!-that spelling is not just a trivial skill and that learning the difference between witch and which is still essential.

Nickelodeon also learned that 82 percent of teens 12–14 use the web. When kids stopped using the Net for ten days, “many noticed schoolwork became a bigger challenge. Parents had to help children by taking them to the library and sometimes conducting the research on the Internet for their children. In most cases, more time was required to complete homework assignments.” More, here.


  • Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?