Are we making more mistakes than before?

I started making silly mistakes. Like: forgetting to put an “s” after a “you” or mismatching a past participle. When I notice these errors, I panic. But why did I let this go? Since when do I let this go?

I have long prided myself on writing quite well. I have already been a reviewer, I don’t make too many blunders, in general… And I worked hard to get there.

As a child, I was behind the group. I remember the alphabet meant nothing to me. A succession of sounds that my classmates sang without my denoting the slightest meaning. My grades were abysmal. Then my mother took matters into her own hands. I must have spent hours copying the Bescherelle and read the dictionary. Otherwise, I was not allowed to watch The little life.

From the third year of my primary, I was first in class.

Thanks Mom.

Thank you, Claude Meunier, thank you, Serge Thériault.

However, despite all the work done to understand the rules that govern our beautiful French language, I have noticed for a few months that my brain is letting its guard down.

“You’re not the first to tell me that,” replied neuropsychologist Anne Gallagher, when I slipped her a word… But what can make us lose our Latin? Automatic correctors? Our attention span on the decline? Frenglish?

Little survey.

The brain in slow motion

“The first factor that comes to mind is boring, but it’s aging. »

The D^D Anne Gallagher, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Montreal, launches our discussion forcefully.

I’m not yet 34!

“We think that as long as we are not 65 years old, everything is correct, but it is false, she answers me. From the age of 30, the speed of information processing begins to decline. Our attentional skills or working memory will also decline afterwards. »

Working memory allows us to mentally manipulate multiple pieces of information. If we are less attentive when we write, we may have difficulty taking into account a large number of data and therefore make more mistakes. Logic.

“Memory also decreases, so we may forget certain syntactic rules”, adds the D^D Gallagher.

At which point I stop answering him, lean my forehead against my kitchen table, and let out a sigh of discouragement.

As the professional has an excellent sense of listening, she tells me as soon as everything is not negative! A healthy person can see their semantic memory increase with age: “When we are exposed to language, we continue to acquire vocabulary. We acquire a lot of knowledge that makes aging fun, too! »

I may make mistakes using complicated words.

At least that’s a win.

Attention in decline

Back to attentional skills now.

For Linda S. Pagani, full professor at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal and researcher at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center, we need to improve our ability to concentrate.

“It’s easy to get distracted today! We embark on the computer, we have a task to do, we receive a notification, we look elsewhere… We practice distraction a lot. And distraction is a rubber band, like memory. It’s a bad habit that you have to self-regulate. »

If I could concentrate only on the words I write, I would make fewer mistakes. It’s obvious. However, the researcher raises another factor to consider which takes me by surprise.

“I mostly hear people complaining about their mistakes between the months of September and April, when there’s a lack of light! This is a period of vitamin D insufficiency, and vitamin D is associated with cognitive impairment, including working memory…”

— …

“You didn’t think I’d go there, did you?” “, she slips laughing to fill my silence.

No ! I didn’t expect people to suggest that I take vitamins to be more alert when I write. Clearly, this subject has not finished surprising me.

The issue of perception

Another twist awaits me on the side of Priscilla Boyer, specialist in French didactics and director of the baccalaureate in school and social adaptation at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières…

So, do we really make more mistakes over time or do we just notice them more?

(One of these answers would be better than the other for my ego, I won’t hide that from you.)

Priscilla Boyer explains to me that if, really, we forget our syntax, it’s possibly out of fatigue: “In adults, it’s a phenomenon that reduces mastery of spelling. In fact, spelling is a low-level skill, that is, it does not occupy our conscious cognitive functions. When you type on your computer, the words come out all by themselves! It’s spelling vigilance that will make sure that at certain sensitive moments, your brain will send you a signal to pay attention. Kind of like when you’re driving down the highway without giving it much thought and suddenly see a deer approaching. »

The problem is that when we are in cognitive overload, our vigilance is reduced… And does that mean anything to you, you, pandemic fatigue?

“Attentional skills are fragile, depending on our socio-affective state,” explains Anne Gallagher. If we look at the neuropsychological profile of a person living with an anxiety disorder, we will see low attentional capacities; as if anxiety was clouding his brain and sapping his attention. In a pandemic, we know that a good part of the population is anxious…”

So, it has nothing to do with digital correctors, all that? Quite frankly, I had a basic assumption that technology was making me lazier…

According to Priscilla Boyer, on the contrary, review tools (such as the Antidote software) invite us to pay more attention. They don’t write for us, but they remind us of grammar rules and encourage us to make decisions.

I admit to the researcher that hearing it, I suddenly feel like those people who feared televisions, when they invaded Quebec homes…

She tells me she likes the comparison. It is not yesterday that we braque in front of new technologies.

The D^D Gallagher was right: clearly, I’m getting old.