The fact that we haven't seen some massively decline in productivity when there started to be rampant "ghost writing" means it's probably fairly meaningless.
It reminds me of the fact that when I was five to nine, my school assigned loads of academic busywork that was completely pointless.
My mum did it for me and let me go out and play. Our class ranks were based solely on exam performance, and I was top of every class.
University probably has loads of pointless busywork too. Though I recall my Masters degree in CS actually being a rather enjoyable experience all around with fun assignments.
For CS classes at least, it seems like you're missing out if you don't do the work because it's so much fun!
Technological productivity has been increasing, but social productivity seems to be declining. Compare the 2020 Presidential debates to JFK vs Nixon's debate, for instance. I don't think that ghostwriting is to blame though.
University is, at least in the classical form, a scientific institution. And science is communicated in writing. So at least in principle, exercising the writing of papers and essays under time pressure is completely natural.
In practice, though, the writing is often hardly instructive. There are very few people that take stuff like "The Elements of Style" seriously. And the subjects are usually quite trivial.
But calling writing per se is as much "busywork" as learning a programming language, CAD modeling, or working out mathematical proofs by induction.
> There are very few people that take stuff like "The Elements of Style" seriously.
That's because it's garbage. Learning to write is great. But that is best done by reading good writing and practicing. A list of rules that constantly violates its own advice because obeying it would make the text hard to read is not of any value.
First of all, uttering criticism is taking something serious, no?
Second, I cannot judge the grammar part, and style is always debatable. But the rules for style were hardly inconsistent when I read the book. "Omit needless words." is the most useful one, especially for academic writing.
It reminds me of the fact that when I was five to nine, my school assigned loads of academic busywork that was completely pointless.
My mum did it for me and let me go out and play. Our class ranks were based solely on exam performance, and I was top of every class.
University probably has loads of pointless busywork too. Though I recall my Masters degree in CS actually being a rather enjoyable experience all around with fun assignments.
For CS classes at least, it seems like you're missing out if you don't do the work because it's so much fun!