David Crystal dispels many common myths about how texting and tweeting are ruining language. For example, the younger a person gets a mobile phone and starts texting, and the more they text, the better their writing (including spelling) and reading skills are. Which, he points out, is obvious because the whole mechanism of texting is writing messages and reading responses. He also identifies studies that show that texting shorthand is not showing up in school papers and essays.
Category: Viewing
-
What’s invisible? More than you think – John Lloyd
Lloyd takes viewers on a short (animated) journey through the world of things that we cannot see. Interestingly, most of the things we cannot see provide the foundation of the world we can see. -
Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory
Most moments are never remembered because our “remembering self” forgets most of them and focuses on the beginning, middle and especially the end. While we often focus on making our “experiencing self” happy, it is our remembering that determines whether an experience made us happy beyond the moment in which we experienced it.
-
Brian Greene: Why is our universe fine-tuned for life?
Greene ties together several modern theories to paint a description of the universe that we see today and what it might look like in the future.
Brian Greene: Why is our universe fine-tuned for life? (TED)
-
Brian Goldman: Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?
Goldman talks candidly about the fact that doctors make mistakes. He suggests that instead of turning a blind eye to such mistakes and pretending like good doctors are perfect, we would address the fact that no amount of training can make a perfect doctor and instead we should focus our efforts on creating systems to minimize those mistakes.
Brian Goldman: Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that? (TED)