Has electronic media contributed to the "dumbing down" of the USA?

[Kryptik]

Read a letter from a soldier who fought in the American Civil War and then read posts and comments on Facebook, Answers etc. Has the average Citizens ability to express their thoughts actually evolved at all in the last 150 years? (or have we truly become a nation of whiny nincompoops)
"Suspecting" is not knowing. Do you have any proof of your suspicions or are you just too busy to actually research the question. Oh, I'm sorry, am I disturbing your video game?

[civil_av8r]

Well, I would tend to suspect that during the Civil War only the more educated people actually took the time to write letter, or read for that fact, whereas today we have a 99.9% literacy rate, so even the less Intelligent can express their thoughts. Therefore, the letters from the Civil War have better grammar and literal expression.

[Smiles]

YES! Thanks for noticing!!! (my answer is no, btw) social networking, texting, video games, everything else that is so easy to find is frying our collective brains! We can get anything without saying anything (keywords, search engines, ect.)

Whn evrythng s ez 2 sy quickfast (OK, so I am not a texter-- but have you read 1984? All about the same thing)

So, if you cannot tell from my sentence structure, fragments, spelling, abbreviations, word choice, and syntax that electronic media has an impact, then yes, look at facebook or twitter! You can only write a certain number of characters, you can only say certain words (theatre is spelled wrong most places, Answers included), and if you use 'big' words, your readers COMPLETELY miss the point! (Thanks for letting me rant to someone who knows what I am talking about)

Now I just take offense at one thing you said-- that I and my friends are whiny nincompoops. Sir (or madam-- these days, I just cannot tell ), I would like to proudly, irrevocably, and rather disdainfully tell you that I am a (wait, whats the word for that again?)