Those who have looked, know. A soldier writing home during World War One, who barely finished the eighth grade, was better at grammar and composition than the average college graduate from the nineties forward to today. My opinion is that there are two reasons for this. The first is that schools back then spent more time in training and repeating the basics, like writing, where today the main goal is rote memorization. The second is that technology, specifically the telephone, had completely disrupted communication patterns so people became less and less practised at writing. Fortunately, I am an optimist.

In my long and vainglorious attempt to understand Social Media, I have watch such things as Twitter go from a feral wasteland of abusive malcontents, to a place where a person can actually find something interesting and intelligent. It is evolutionary pressure. Slowly, people are rediscovering, and reinventing in some cases, grammar and prose because it makes their words more effective and efficient. In a sea of Tweets, those who can pack more value and meaning into their words are more likely to get noticed.

Similarly, and this scares me a little, this is also happening with the telephone. I have never liked talking on the phone, and for a decade or two now, that has worked out well for me as more and more people have pushed the phone aside for the more convenient texting and email. However, as evolutionary pressure works this out, efficiency and effectiveness will bring a form of it back. While I am certain that we can connect more deeply with people through the written word, it is often easier and quicker to read a person over the phone; by the tone of their voice, the patterns of the speech, and the intuitive feel that we get from them. The modern form of this that will become indispensable is the video call. For example, I can imagine wanting to sell some furniture and putting an add out on the internet. Before I invite a total stranger to come into my home though, I would have a video chat with them first… to weed out those I feel are serious or not, and those who might simply be looking for an opportunity to scope out the rest of my house.

Profiling is a very bad public policy, but a very healthy personal policy… only if on an individual basis, and grounded in our instincts and intuition; nothing physical and superficial.