• abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    No, most people are not illiterate, you’re confusing literacy with media literacy because that’s what you want to talk about instead.

    There is a difference between “I don’t know what that sign says” and “I don’t know what this book means.”

    • fern@lemmy.autism.place
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      7 hours ago

      It’s called functional literacy, which is what’s being talked to here. Also, your anecdote fails to address other possibilities. I have a friend that, under stress of a new location, may lose the ability to read menus, and their literacy matches other academics in their field. I am a reader that cannot read aloud because that is an entirely different skill than reading.

      • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        I know I’m talking about functional illiteracy, that’s why I said “Most likely functionally illiterate” in my comment.

        The person who replied to me brought up media literacy/illiteracy, which is a separate concept, and mistakenly referred to it as illiteracy, which I corrected.