Vera Gheno, co-author of “Keep it on. Post, comment, share without turning off your brain “the book that inspired one of the traces on the topicality of the Maturity 2022, is one sociolinguista Specialized in Computer Mediated Communication and author of numerous essays focusing on the meaning, power and importance of the word.
Missing engineer – “I signed up and then it took me a year and a half to understand that I had chosen badly” – she became passionate about sociolinguistica, or rather to linguistics in the social context. “It is a subject that focuses on the human being and not on language as a separate subject – he tells us – I am interested in people”.
“In high school I was a brilliant student, they told me I could do anything and I chose the most difficult: engineering – says Gheno – but then I realized that I couldn’t go on with the exams. And for me I had never failed before, it was something tragic. I enrolled in Literature, then, and I chose sociolinguistics. My father is a linguist, the apple never falls too far from the tree “.
Specialized in Computer mediated communicationthe study of what happens in the online language, for twenty years Vera Gheno has collaborated with theAccademia della Crusca. Today his name will be on the lips of many students who have taken the Italian test. It is not a literary prize, but this too is an acknowledgment.
“A strange recognition – she says -. It was certainly a great surprise to see a not very recent book, from 2018, which at the time was certainly a little more on point”.
Together with philosopher Bruno MastroianniGheno published in 2018 the volume that has been used since Ministry of Education for the track focused on hyperconnection theme. “Keep it on. Post, comment, share without turning off your brain “published by Longanesi, indicates “the paths to take to freely experience the riches that the web and social networks offer us”.
The fact that a sociolinguist and a philosopher are the protagonists of a trace on hyperconnection, for Gheno is a good sign: “Language is the basis of everything, any knowledge is communicated with words. Perhaps we are finally beginning to understand that a hybrid culture must be pursued and not a watertight one”.
“The advantage of that book compared to many similar volumes – says Gheno – is that it is not catastrophic, it speaks above all of how digital can be used responsibly, which should not be seen as the Apocalypse but as an opportunity”.
It is true that, in fact, many things have changed since 2018. The social networks that already existed at the time have changed, others have arrived (TikTok above all), we have understood something more about the effects that these networks have on users, especially on the youngest. Then, the way in which kids use these tools has changed. At the speed of light.
If Vera Gheno could have given advice to students who have chosen the hyperconnection trackwould have been to make a certainly courageous choice.
“Since it is a text from 2018, and we two authors are two ‘boomers’ from the point of view of young people, I would have set the theme on this, on the difference between what we tell and what is experienced today from a digital point of view, I would have made a critical theme “the sociolinguist tells us. And he adds: “In the book there are vintage passages, other things instead retain their validity because we tried to do a job that went beyond mere digital skills, and that included analog ones: how much to tell about yourself on social media, which photo to choose , even how to apologize. “