I'm Dyslexic and the Web Was My Idea

by Matt Swanston
used with permission from CompTIA

I just watched a speech author David Weinberger gave at the Library of Congress. His presentation was based on his book "Everything is Miscellaneous" which explains how information technology has changed the way people think, learn and interact. The speech left me with as many questions as answers – which in some sense is the definition of interesting. But his assertions struck a powerful and familiar chord with me – one that might resonate with some of you as well.

I am dyslexic and dyslexics see the world differently. Strings of letters and numbers for example, never look familiar to me. In my mind, family birthdays, phone numbers and simple math equations rarely stick well enough for me to say that I have memorized them. To me, even common words look just as familiar spelled correctly as incorrectly and despite spending every day with my kids, I struggle to remember their grades and ages.

In a society held together by math and language, dyslexia is a real handicap. This is especially evident in mainstream academia, which lumps dyslexics in with other "special needs" students including blind, deaf, autistic and violent kids. When I was in school, there was a move to start referring to dyslexia as a "learning difference" rather than a "learning disability." At the time, this seemed like semantic hyper-correctness – but as an adult, I have come to understand and even support the notion if not the (still absurd sounding) language.

In this context, disability is a subjective and relative term that suggests someone can’t do something, can’t do it well or can’t do it easily. This of course depends entirely on the context. Being confined to a wheelchair could be a significant handicap on a narrow, rocky woodland trail, but it might well be an advantage in the Mall of America. Deafness would make it tough to be a music teacher but could be a benefit for a firearms instructor. Someone without a sense of smell would have a hard time working at a department store perfume counter but might make an excellent coroner. A short basketball player and a tall jockey are equally disadvantaged in their respective sports. You get the idea – a difference becomes a handicap only when the environment or the task at hand calls for a missing attribute.

Letters, numbers and other symbols are as prevalent and important now as ever, but dyslexia isn’t the handicap that it once was (for me at least). Academia hasn’t changed much – kids who fall outside of the mainstream are still largely lumped together to be underserved as a group. What has changed is the way the rest of the world finds, stores and uses information. The cryptic command line interface that stymied early PC users is now hidden behind a graphical interface that doesn’t’ discriminate against the syntax challenged. The arcane (and static) numerical system we once used to find information in libraries has been largely replaced by the wide net cast by a Google search. Even wildly misspelled words are automatically corrected as we type, and our pocket-sized devices remind us of birthdays and anniversaries even when we can’t remember the exact dates.

For me, the mouse-driven graphical user interface is the wheelchair I use to get around modern society. The web allows me to navigate the sum of human knowledge in the way my "different" mind works. Podcasts and streaming video provide a text free window into information that once seemed trapped on a page of swimming letters.

It seems that information technology has caught up with dyslexics. The non-standard, fluid, relational, multisensory way dyslexics have always preferred to consume information has become mainstream. The net effect has been to turn my learning disability into something of an advantage – at least some of the time.

To the IT professionals who democratized information and simplified the user interface I say simply, "thanks." To those who once made fun of my still horrid math and spelling skills, I say, "welcome to my world!" And to my LD peers, I say triumphantly "Dyslexics Untie!" (Sorry, I couldn’t resist).