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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

The headline is misleading. The article says almost half "can’t read for their age". It's not saying they are illiterate. It's an inflammatory headline as written and the language does not come from the article.

Also - genuine question for anyone with a clue - what percent of high school age kids do you think have smartphones in, say, East Oakland?

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> Also - genuine question for anyone with a clue - what percent of high school age kids do you think have smartphones in, say, East Oakland?

Answer: Effectively all of them. Source: worked in inner city schools for a bit in areas at least as poor as East Oakland.

Can confirm - Mom works with inner city youth and bussed children with a number of East Bay school districts

Indeed. I sometimes suspect that those who've never spent any appreciable time around or with the lower classes fall back on Dickensian notions of the pauper. They might be surprised by their conspicuous spending habits and preferences devoted to the acquisition latest gadgets, flashiest sneakers, and gaudiest logo-emblazoned clothing. Failing to wear and own such things because, for example, your family is saving for or spending on education or something actually worth spending money on, is a faux pas.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13392/w133...

Go outside and look around. Just use your powers of observation and take a look. If you are a typical neolib you live in a nice area. So how about you hop on some public transport and visit your local county hospital ER.

I asked about high school aged kids, not hospitals, but thanks for the oddly hostile comment anyway. Fun to be a dick to strangers, huh?

My experience with underclass whites is they access the internet exclusively through phones and seem almost unaware of computers and wired internet access. It’s an example of “the poor pay more and get less.”

Phones are the new high-top sneakers. HS teens would rather be caught with pooped pants than not have a smartphone --even if not the latest and greatest.

"Can't read for their age" is the key part. Without specifying the numbers from years prior is not very relevant in my opinion. When I was in high school, it seemed like most everyone's reading/writing ability was between a 6th-8th grade level according to these scores. Made me wonder if the assigned scores were just too ambitious.

By the way, I don't consider Internet access as useful to literacy as it did to millenials. Millenials had to deal with a text-based internet for online entertainment, but late Gen Z-Gen A's Internet is videos and images with taglines on social media.

All of them.

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