Dumbing it Down - The Problem with the Lowest Common Denominator June 24, 2008
I’d like to thank Buzz Bishop for twittering the link to One Degree’s article ‘Why “dumbing down” is smart‘.
The basic gist of this article is that if you want to capture the largest possible demographic for your product/blog/website/etc that dumbing it down is the easiest solution. The article then goes on to say that the average American reads at an eight grade level and that 30% of web users have a low level of literacy – the author does not give the definition of low level of literacy, but if an eighth grade level is the benchmark, I would venture to say that the bar has not been set very high. The author then details some statistics on what ‘low literacy’ readers online habits are and suggestions for you on how to reach them.
As an online marketer, I can see how this information maybe beneficial to increase your readership levels and to try and gain the largest market penetration available, but as a person, this article horrifies me. The ‘dumbing down’ of North America is a major problem. Just look at the current US Primary season, it is no longer admirable for the candidate to come across as educated, informed, and knowledgeable. No, the candidate needs to be just another ‘fellow’. Jon Stewart said it best - and I am completely paraphrasing here - I want my leader to make me look like an idiot and I want him to be the smartest person in the room. Intelligence is something that should be valued and strive for, not something that is shunned or looked down upon in the main stream.
You find this problem of chasing the lowest common denominator everywhere though. Just take the two local Vancouver newspapers - The Province and The Vancouver Sun. I believe - and please correct me if I am wrong - that they are at a 6th grade and 8th grade reading level respectively. This is a very sad state of affairs. We have a free public school system that goes to the 12th grade. Granted, not everyone completes high school, but should the vast majority of us not be able to read at that level.
Our education and intelligence is not like riding a bike, these skills do not stay with you forever; they diminish over time if you do not use them. So this move towards the lowest common denominator is a race to the bottom. The information contained within the article is great if you think that this is an admirable or desired outcome, but I don’t think it is.
The last sentence in the article was “So if you want more readers, sounding “dumb” online really is the smartest way to go.” Well I’m not OK with that. If what it means to increase my readership is to make myself sound uneducated and just one of the folks, I’m more than happy to keep my readership levels low - and this goes for the corporate sites I work on as well. I will not be part of the ‘dumbing down of North America’ epidemic that is happening. I do not want to race down to the lowest common denominator!
As an aside, one of the suggestions in the article was to use Microsoft Word and calculate the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease of your writing. This blog post received a 10th grade reading level and a 60% reading ease. I am glad that I fail at the authors suggestion even though I don’t think this article is difficult to read.