I remember reading how the Megacorps are promoting Iconography Literacy opposed to Language Literacy in one of the Fluff Books awhile back... And also considered how badly Public Schools are probably doing.

As part of a dystopian future, illiteracy would be a pretty major problem, with a good number of SINner kids being lucky to even have DataTerms/CommLinks in their underfunded school. Text Books, forget it. Those mouldy old things have long since gone the way of the POTS.

Shadowrunners would actually be a bastion of literacy, in my mind, however. The amount of datawork and back-checking they have to do would make it a survival trait. Not to mention a lot of free time on their hands to improve themselves in a recreational manner ("20th Century Artwork" Knowledge Skill anyone?).

How badly does this affect things in your games, folks?

Good point!

Not sure how many other sci-fi authors went into this, but...

There was a great scene in Ringworld Engineers where Loius Wu negotiated computer access time with city-dwellers after he touted himself as an "interstellar visitor" and how he "wanted to help them rebuild their civ".

He sits down at the computer, stares blankly at the keyboard, and asks the puter to run a data search. The city-dwellers werequite shocked todiscover he couldn't READ...

Louis was more than a little embarrassed, himself, IIRC.

And he wasn't even from a typical "Dystopian" future, either.

Well, aside from the pickpockets, IIRC.

The point is, who needs to visit school? Just get the kids a comlink with a simmodule and trodes plus a fair collection of knowledge skillsofts. Much cheaper than lots of schools and teachers. Focus the money on a handful of schools for the elite.

True, but you'd have to pay for legal copies of each, which can get to be pretty high...

You know, I'm reminded of the old thread a friend of mine got going about "The ShadowSkool"...