A number of studies (abstract) looked at how children perceive the trustworthiness of written instructions compared to oral instructions. Children who could read trusted a written instruction over an oral instruction, whereas children who could not read did not show a preference.
Regardless of age, the children who couldn't yet read were indiscriminate in whether they chose to trust the purely oral advice, or whether to trust the puppet who read the text instruction. By contrast, the children with some reading ability showed a clear preference to trust the puppet who read from the envelope, choosing the tube they recommended over 75 percent of the time.
Two further studies cleared up some ambiguities. For instance, it was found that young readers prefer to trust a puppet who reads the instruction from text, than oral advice from a puppet who gets their information from a whisper in the ear. In other words, the young readers weren't simply swayed by the fact the text puppet was drawing on a secondary source. Young readers also trusted instruction from written text over information conveyed in a coloured symbol. This shows they're specifically trusting of written text, not just any form of permanent, external information.
Corriveau's team said their results showed that once children learn to read, "they rapidly come to regard the written word as a particularly authoritative source of information about how to act in the world." They added that in some ways this result is difficult to explain. Young readers are exposed to a good deal of fantasy and fiction in written form, so why should they be so trusting of written instruction? Perhaps they are used to seeing adults act on the basis of written information such as maps, menus, and recipes but then again, pre-readers will also have had such experiences. This suggests there's something special about the process of learning to read that leads children to perceive written instruction as authoritative.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:49PM
I guess thats where the "I want that in writing" comes from ...
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nr_9 on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:24PM
They will be cured of that when they first encounter Youtube comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:58PM
Now, children, who can tell me what's wrong with this sentence?
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:11PM
No, because I cannot read it. ;-)
(Score: 4, Informative) by broken on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:55PM
Technically, they were both oral instructions. In one case the source of the instruction was presumably written down, and in the other there was no apparent source.
(Score: 3, Funny) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:21PM
They're in for a rude awakening when they read the Android API documentation...! After that, you doubt yourself and the entire universe. You spend the rest of your life in a fog, wondering if you are still sane.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Friday July 04 2014, @02:15AM
I tried reading the Android API documentation... Now you owe a pizza roll for reminding me...
I think you owe me a pizza roll...
I think maybe you owe me a pizza roll...
Maybe I think you owe me a pizza roll...
If I give you a pizza roll, will you go away?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @04:47AM
Documentation is oversimplification to the point of uselessness. Code itself is the only accurate description of a program.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @01:12PM
Code is not an accurate description of the program. It is an accurate description of what the program does, but not of what you can reasonably expect to still work in future versions of the program. It doesn't distinguish between intentional and accidental behaviour.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:24PM
They're right: the written word is more trustworthy. The written word does not change with time, unlike the spoken word which is ephemeral. The children who have learned how to read likely noticed this fact in the course of becoming literate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @01:19PM
Longevity is not the same as truth. Indeed, the fact that the written word doesn't change also means that it cannot reflect any knowledge gained after it was written.
The written word is more reliable. It is not more trustworthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @01:38PM
Reliability is an aspect of trustworthiness. Remember that the claim is that the written word is _more_ trustworthy than the spoken word, not that the written word is in and of itself trustworthy. All else being equal, it is more sensible to trust a record that is difficult to alter rather than a record that is easy to alter (with no evidence except for fallible human memory to tell you whether it changed or not).
You're right that in situations where the underlying facts change, immutability isn't necessarily a good thing for representing the current state of the thing being described. But still, even in cases where data changes, a written record is more trustworthy than an oral record if only as a record of the data at a given point in time.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @07:25AM
I wonder how this is related to the "It's written in the Bible/Qu'ran/Scripture, therefore it must be true" concept.
Could this happen *because* of this preference, or does hearing adults claim it *cause* the preference?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @01:20PM
If you cite anything online, that's somehow suspicious to many teachers etc. However if you have a dead wood source available. it is somehow instantly credible.
And the morons justify this electrophobia with brainwaves like "but anybody can write stuff online"... incredibly sad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @02:52PM
Let's cut to the chase, shall we?
A properly written (and signed) document is accepted as legal proof
of some fact or group of facts in a court of law. Without it,
all you have is "I said, they said," and heresay via third parties.
Written and signed legally binding documents cut through all that BS
and minimizes the time wasted in court.
I have first hand knowledge that this is an established truth of the
legal system--they SURE DO love a paper trail! :P