"Words are dead. Here's what will replace them."

[thegman]

I don't think words are dead, I think with Facebook and Twitter a lot of people are using them now when they would not have before. It can look like quality is diminishing, but I think it's more like there are more outlets for dross than for quality.

If you want to get a great book published, that's still very difficult, but you can publish your 'no drama' outbursts on one of many extraordinarily popular online services.

 

[mwoenv]

Just more instantly-forgettable clutter for the hard drive in the era of zero attention span.

 

[zauhar]

Words are not dead.
It is the ability of many persons to effectively use words in a coherent fashion that appears to be dying.
We live in a world of texting where the language has been simplified with idiotic short forms and acronyms so that many young people seemingly have lost the ability to clearly and effectively express complicated ideas.
The Newspeak of Orwell's 1984 has come to pass.

If you are on college faculty, you tend to believe this. Most students cannot construct a coherent paragraph, much less produce an extended narrative. I have responded angrily when a student says "I know what I want to say, I just don't know how to say it!" Bull****! The acid test of whether you have a coherent idea is found in communicating it.

One point of view:
EVERYONE is supposed to go to college today, everyone should be a superb writer, everyone should be able to do calculus. All to get a job arranging numbers in a new pattern in a spreadsheet or barfing out mediocre marketing copy or bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.
Maybe the proportion of people who can write well has not changed, it's that we now proclaim ridiculous expectations.

Another point of view:
We have really deteriorated. When I was a college student even the most disinterested students were reading stuff not assigned in class. It may have been Isaac Asimov or Carlos Castaneda in place of Shakespeare or Joyce, but it was a real narrative, that took time and concentration to finish. That had to strengthen their ability to reason, to imagine, to feel. That is now all lost.

I have oscillated between those two viewpoints over the years, have no clue what the reality is or whether the questions are even correct. I just know that I really dislike things the way they are.

 

[locheeboy]

Bah!!.......Humbug!!.....

...

See what ah did there...

 

[Scrambler]

Maybe the proportion of people who can write well has not changed, it's that we now proclaim ridiculous expectations.

I sat down yesterday with the last 5 years exam results for one of the General Practice Fellowship assessments (equivalent of Board Certification in Family Medicine for Americans). With double the number of candidates now, almost exactly the same number are passing each time. Which means the pass percentage is falling.

I think the same may be true on a larger scale. The same NUMBER of good photos, writings etc, lost in the tide of lesser work.

As for "words are dead": it would be more likely to be a compelling argument if done without (written) words, like the film of Fahrenheit 451.

It's not a new thought, as the example above shows. I think the early concerns about the "return of the medieval mind" expressed in the 1980's are closer to the truth than the creation of a visually literate supersociety.

 

[marameo]

The old adage goes something like: "an image is worthwhile thousands words". Yet, photography gets people to talk, there're more words than photos in this forum.

The best camera is the one you always bring along and this holds true for our mobile phones. Also, If we stop worrying about grain, resolution and everything else that doesn't have a thing to do with substance, I think we will realize that a mobile camera CAN live up to our leicas etc...

 

[shadowfox]

Words are dead for those who don't like to read since... thousands of years ago 😀

But seriously, smartphones do increase the capacity to produce images, the key is, to produce what? It still depends heavily on the depths of the producers' mind, doesn't it?

 

[Bigmonstertruck]

One should be allowed to shoot with a pellet gun any iPad or similar device that is held up and used as a camera during an event. Maybe I will just show up to events with a 25" monitor with a kodak instamatic taped to the side, nail it to a broomstick, and wave it around at events. Think anyone will get the idea?

 

[Roger Hicks]

One should be allowed to shoot with a pellet gun any iPad or similar device that is held up and used as a camera during an event. Maybe I will just show up to events with a 25" monitor with a kodak instamatic taped to the side, nail it to a broomstick, and wave it around at events. Think anyone will get the idea?

What's wrong with a 12-bore? Oh... collateral damage, I suppose. So stick with meat cleaver.

Cheers,

R.

 

[haempe]

BTW ... to be honest, I'm very disappointed by the fact, a device with such poor ergonomics like a smartphone has such a success as a camera-substitute.
Ok, maybe I'm just clumsy... 🙄

 

[zauhar]

I sat down yesterday with the last 5 years exam results for one of the General Practice Fellowship assessments (equivalent of Board Certification in Family Medicine for Americans). With double the number of candidates now, almost exactly the same number are passing each time. Which means the pass percentage is falling.

I think the same may be true on a larger scale. The same NUMBER of good photos, writings etc, lost in the tide of lesser work.

As for "words are dead": it would be more likely to be a compelling argument if done without (written) words, like the film of Fahrenheit 451.

It's not a new thought, as the example above shows. I think the early concerns about the "return of the medieval mind" expressed in the 1980's are closer to the truth than the creation of a visually literate supersociety.

Really interesting bit of evidence, thanks for sharing that. So lots of pressure
to be a doc down under too? I think interest in the us is starting to flag just a little, especially in primary care and other areas with modest compensation. If most of the potential students saw how hard my wife (a psychiatrist) works for what she makes, they might not want any part of medicine .

Randy

 

[zauhar]

BTW ... to be honest, I'm very disappointed by the fact, a device with such poor ergonomics like a smartphone has such a success as a camera-substitute.
Ok, maybe I'm just clumsy... 🙄

No, they suck as cameras , it's not just you.

I was at an incredibly cool event the other night, and was changing film while missing some incredibly cool action. The devil whispered in my ear to take the demon device out of my pocket, but I put Satan behind me and pressed on in the righteous path. ;-)

Randy

 

[gilgsn]

That does not concern me much. Sure, billions of photos are taken, but how many are truly good ones? The sheer number will ensure that some gems come out, but it still takes work to produce a good image, most of the time. Moreover, these billions of images will disappear sooner than later. They are no more than bits on a computer chip. Only meaningful and beautiful photographs will get the attention necessary to their survival. Why should I care that people take photos with their phones and why should that depress me?

The loss of skills, yes, I mourn that, not just for photography. I was just replying on my radiopreppers.com site to a thread about GPS and the fact that few now know how to navigate, on land or at sea. Same problem, "there is an app for that." Problem is, technology is dependent on a fragile infrastructure...

What bothers me sometimes is when I see someone who buys a DSLR with a kit lens, changes their Facebook profile name to "so-&-so Photography" and advertises wedding photography services. They suck but nobody is telling them, or their public doesn't even know how to tell the difference, which is more than obvious when you see their photos.

Who is a good photographer? Is it the technical guy who can make perfect prints from film of perfectly exposed soulless photographs, or the guy with an iPhone who makes photographs that move you? I'd say the second one...

Anyway, I'm rambling.. Ya'll have a great day.

Gil.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

Mobile phone cameras have (and will probably always have) significant limitations - generally a lack of telephoto lens capability, poor low-light performance, etc. Add to that the fact that a high proportion of users are probably unfamiliar with how to get the best out of a proper canera, let along how to circumvent the aforementioned failings of mobile phone cameras.

Consumers are also being persuaded to accept these sexy (and quite expensive) devices by clever marketing - effectively dumbing-down the photographic process and output yet further.

Do we see this as a threat of some kind?

There are examples of current-day photojournalism, such as discreetly photographing atrocities being committed in war zones, is providing a useful funtion. However, the quality is generally pretty awful compared to using the right gear for the job. The same is true of most mobile phone photography. Dumbing down, again.

"A picture paints a thousand words" to some extent but, if those words are "I can't make out what this is meant to be" and "that's not even in focus" etc. then there'll always need to be a verbal or written explanation - at least to put the photo in a time and location context, if not explain precisely what is going on.

I won't be totally dismissive of mobile phone cameras as they're better than nothing if you're out at a party or you want to record the number plate of the car whose owner you believe has just scraped the paint of your car's wing. Yes, there's a million more uses; but not even the whizziest mobile phone can out-perform a good photographer with even the most basic 35mm kit, IMO.

 

[rluka]

Just more instantly-forgettable clutter for the hard drive in the era of zero attention span.

Yet even in that instantaneous world of social media, picture is killing words except few of the wittiest.

Before Twitter is overtaken by pictures, even a mundane photo grabs more attention than mundane words. Shared articles are always accompanied by pictures.
There's even more and more peoples commenting with macro images (sincerely speaking, I'm quite sick with it already and miss the boring yet more original comments

A single picture is more compatible with that zero-attention-span who had put anything longer than a sentence as tl;dr


Probably not important, but I've been using Flipboard for a few weeks to find news. Then I noticed that the Twitter stream there is biased to tweets that contain picture rather than the majority of tweets in my timeline that is text only. And picture is also featured prominently in all the news items.