Talking about intellectualism, many people on FB have stopped communicating verbally altogether. Their response to anything is a cutesy, flashing picture. In some threads, there are barely any words at all, just flashing tweety birds, smiling bunnies, and pulsating red hearts. After staring at 20 of them in a row you begin to think you are in a crazy circus
Some folks started banning pictures in their threads, and I don’t blame them.
Well, the sooner we all stop using words to communicate with each other online, the easier it will be for foreign agents to spread propaganda unhindered. They won’t even have to bother learning more than basic English.
On a less sarcastic note, I suspect people are trying not to be controversial or misunderstood.
I listened to a good TedTalk the other day on the ways that Facebook algorithms manipulate its users.
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Before long review of articles will be reduced to smiling kittens eating cake and frowny faces, and not long after that the articles themselves will reduced to section names followed by the appropriate emoticons.
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Ukrainians are upset there’s emoji for borscht.
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And of course soon after that professors will be required to list their emoticons along with their pronouns.
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They wouldn’t have said anything useful anyway, certainly not in that context. I would not be surprised if RGB hieroglyphics were in fact the most appropriate response to the original posts.
Problem with plentiful colourful nonsense isn’t that it’s dumbing people down, it’s that it’s hard to ignore if you don’t want to pay attention to it.
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…and also that so many people get so used to all of them over time they eventually lose the ability to read whatever useful writing there still is out there because they can no longer relax their minds long enough to stay focused on anything.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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