Has anyone else noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills?
Just as the title asks I've noticed a very sharp increase in people just straight up not comprehending what they're reading.
They'll read it and despite all the information being there, if it's even slightly out of line from the most straightforward sentence structure, they act like it's complete gibberish or indecipherable.
Has anyone else noticed this? Because honestly it's making me lose my fucking mind.
What?
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
They don't think it be like it is, but it do.
Hey, 1970s baseball slugger Oscar Gamble is in da house!
You've got to be kidding me. I've been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It's just common sense.
Is this what it's like to have a stroke?
Oh thank goodness I thought it was just me. When I read that I thought 'dang covid messed me up'
Been a few years since having covid, but my wife and I both feel like we lost some memory and brain power from it, even though we were both vaccinated and had less evere symptoms than others.
In our 30s by the way
nah its a copypasta internet meme from waaay back in the day. Probably like around 2004.
Shhh! Don't tell them my age!
This feels like reading a language that you only kinda know.
This☝️ so true
Wow that genuinely was a struggle to read
It roughly translates, in-context, to "Has any [video game publisher] gone to such lengths to make something so realistic?"
This comment is psychological warfare.
Somebody get this man a doctor, I think he's had a stroke.
A stroke of genius?
Fuck this is actually funny
Tbh, that was my response lol
I understand what you mean, but I haven't noticed people not comprehending basic information. Can you give examples?
As a lot of people have already pointed out it's mostly prevalent in arguments. Like a comment I made on a video about lane splitting on motorcycles.
The video was explaining why lane splitting is safer for cyclists and shows a cyclist get rear ended at a stop light. The title of the video was "Most people don't understand lane splitting"
I simply commented "No we understand this specific scenario but to continue driving between stopped traffic is completely different"
All the replies to my comment were about lane splitting at a stop sign/stop light. The very thing I specifically stated I understood.
lane splitting is legal on the highways in california, I don't know about on all streets. it sounds like maybe you shouldn't do it on streets where you'd run into stop lights, or generally anything more complex than the interstate. personally I'm always careful whenever I see a motorcycle.
why is lane splitting safer? intuition suggests that treating a motorcycle like a car and giving them the same space or more would be safer, especially since you could predict what they'd do better since it would be the same as a car
When all the cars have stopped, that's the safest time for the cyclist to slither up to the front of the line. At 20 mph on a crowded freeway, it's a little more dangerous but legal in CA as long as they don't go more than (iirc) 20 mph faster than traffic. At 65 mph on a still-crowded LA freeway, having a bike race past you doing 90 can be disconcerting to say the least. At least you know if they cause an accident and you're injured, they'll probably be your organ donor.
Well that's sort of a bad example. What your explaining are two separate things. Filtering (moving to the front of a stopped lane by moving between vehicles stopped or by stopping) and lane splitting (moving between lanes at highway speeds).
Iirc filtering is safer but splitting is like way more dangerous but I'd have to look it up.
I have to say I find it ironic that all replies here are about the lane splitting too.
Good evening Ozzy !
I'm afraid there's nothing new about this, it has been going on for a long time. What I do believe is happening is now that every idiot with a cell phone can jump of sites like lemmy or reddit, we are simply seeing a lot more examples of the problem. Pretty much like when camcorders became affordable to the general public, we suddenly saw all kinds of police brutality videos and some people thought this must be a recent trend when in fact it had been occurring all along.
One of my last comments on Reddit was about this.
It has made me start writing more clearly. There are comments I've written that have been wildly misinterpreted from my actual meaning. Part of that is that I tend towards sarcasm, and it doesn't translate well over the internet no matter how absurd I get with it. But I've also started aiming to use more simple sentence structure.
to use simpler sentence structure.
use smol words
Why use many word, when few word do trick?
use less word
word less.
Brief
Few
One of my favorite Redditisms was picking out incredibly obvious sarcasm with massive downvotes. Bonus points if replied to with a huge angry essay.
And due to the voting patterns, I learned to be suspicious of my own comments that were highly upvoted. I started to see it as a bad smell. My best work was the controversial stuff.
My biggest upvotes were always jokes. If I tried to make reasonable points about anything, or god forbid, shared my experiences - I was downvoted into oblivion and people would actively comment to tell me how much they hated my way of thinking or just repeat to me that I need therapy as if going to therapy harder was some how the answer.
Excuse me but you are interrupting my dopamine flow. Your response appears to be neither a meme, rage bait, justice boner, nor even a pun. I hope you learn from this experience and do better.
"do better" is my personal ragebait.
So many people where I live over use that shit.
Introducing quotes from authors that were related to the subject would really show how people were locked in the context of media immediacy, the environment. Links to outside citations would almost always generate replies from people who obviously did not study the citation and just wanted to respond back.
It used to be something people said 'out loud' about people not reading links and just commenting... then it just became normalized.
oh yeah the good ol' [citation needed] meme even though they were already given a damn citation.
Such an obvious sign of someone just responding to respond. Relies on repeating memes as a crutch and can't have a real discussion about a a topic.
there's also the problem of people not reading it in the first place, and the problem of people intentionally misinterpreting what you say in bad faith. those aren't literacy issues
I've had the same experience with people (intentionally or otherwise) misinterpreting what I said to mean something completely opposite. And I call them out on it every time, like seriously did you even READ what I said or did you just see a few words and insert your own beliefs into what you thought I was going to say? I've actually had some people admit that yes, they did indeed quickly skim without letting the actual words sink in.
It's really a shame that you're reducing your writing to the lowest common denominator. Sure there may be times when there's a reason for that (Earth not flat, dummy), but the rest of the time it drags down the whole conversation to a level where it's difficult to have a meaningful discussion. If someone is really trying to grasp a concept but they're missing it then of course you need to drop out of the technical jargon to help them get up to speed, but the ones who are there just to ridicule and troll simply aren't worth the effort to explain simple concepts to (such as your opinion on women's reproductive rights is meaningless, the only opinion that matters is that of the woman who is affected by the issue). Keep up the high-quality discussions and ignore everyone who doesn't make the effort to keep up!
IMO, many (most?) people quite simply don't think about things. They just have some dogmatic positions they've taken for some reasons, and they regurgitate them as necessary.
And that's a lot of the reason that they so often and so brazenly misinterpret things other people say. They're not actually reading to comprehend - they're reading just to get enough of a feel for it to classify it, so that they'll have some (potentially quite wrong) idea of which bit of rhetoric to trot out in response to it.
You are not wrong. Reading what you typed, I can't help but think about the people who have spent so much time defending their self-serving opinions that they can no longer have any reaction other than to start arguing. My ex had a bad case of bi-polar. She was really a great person, but any time someone disagreed with her (or even if she thought they were disagreeing) a switch would flip and she would rage at you until she thought she had won. Even walking away wasn't enough because then she wanted an admission that she was right. Funny thing was that after that had passed and she calmed down, you could talk to her rationally and she could see your point, but it simply wasn't worth the effort.
Yup. This is the only way. Those people are just trying to get responses. The only way to get win is to not give them what they want.
Honestly I feel like the only reason they do this is to bring people down to their level so they can feel like they are somehow smarter, because that's a lot less effort than actually learning about the subject. Ah well.
I was a strong advocate for rediquette for a long time, but the site kept attracting new people who didn't give a shit about it. You can't fight the tides of change, I guess.
The eternal September eventually gets you.
Unmarked sarcasm via text is just always a bad idea. People don't realize how much body language, tone, and to an extent history with the person, goes into recognizing sarcasm IRL.
When you remove all of that context... it's often just an extremely dumb statement, and I for one am just going to take you at your word, because too many people really do mean whatever it is you just said.
It's also terrible because you get a comment like "I guess the earth really is flat" which maybe 99% of people take as sarcasm, and then the one flat earther or borderline flat earther comes along and goes "wow, lots of people are getting behind this movement!"
Yeah, I feel the sarcasm thing. I used to use a lot more absurdist humor but over the past decade it's become increasingly pointless and even counterproductive as Poe's law moves along with the Overton window of stupidity. Stuff that used be recognized as obvious satire before gets taken much too seriously far too often now.
I disagree. It's a very good game, but I think Donkey Kong is the best game ever.
But does that make us morally superior?
At work if I ask 2 questions in an email I’m guaranteed 1 or 0 answers.
My boss is horrible about this. He also doesn't organize his inbox in conversation view so he'll randomly pop up in different parts of an ongoing thread and can't keep track of what people are talking about.
You should fire your boss. Sounds like they're not a great fit.
OMG fr. I'll ask my boss, shall we do option 1,or option 2? and he'll write back, Yes.
Actchually, that is a perfectly correct response according to propositional calculus.
One or the other? Yes, one or the other.
That's not just reading comprehension. People are always answering my questions with unapplicable answers.
"Is it on the left or the right?"
"It's 67, the one with grass in the yard."
Just answer the damn question rather than providing me other information you decide would be more helpful!
Ok so in defense of dumbasses, we don't always understand the question. Eg, whose left? In those cases we don't want to make your clarify the question and drag things out, so we give you what we hope is an unequivocally clear response. It comes from a deep-seeded fear of miscommunication resulting in too many mailboxes with their flags on the wrong side or whatever. We apologize for the pedantry, though. I get that it's annoying.
Maybe because there's 10 kinds of email replies at your workplace
I think it has something to do with everything trying to get your attention, and waste your time for metrics.
We ignore signs because we don't want to read another popup.
We skim text because we don't want to know about your life story, just the chili recipe, thanks.
We skip or misread instructions because we've been doing the job for years, and we're halfway on autopilot.
We can't find a restaurant or shop right in front of us because we're starting to learn to ignore bright colors and flashing lights.
We browse the internet while watching a movie because we've seen the same cliche Marvel movie before.
The problem is that sometimes we get so used to these things that we also do it when we shouldn't be.
Thanks for putting it in words so well. These days I have to default to 'no thanks' for most information arriving in front of my face or I get quickly overwhelmed or distracted. Re-learning how to find the important stuff in an ever-changing media landscape takes up quite some energy, especially as the brain gets older.
I have the exact same thing. I have to 'work' to 'pay attention' to text nowadays. I can spend hours painting minis or roaming a museum, but there's something about text nowadays that almost pushes my attention away.
I started preferring long form media recently. Audiobooks especially. Social media allows anyone to say a single thing that may or may not be legit, but since it's bite sized information units they don't need to back it up. Long form media requires a person to back up what they say, and having that barrier of entry filters out those who probably aren't worth listening to.
May I suggest that you don't get a job in IT?
"I try to do a thing on my computer and I get an error message."
"What does the message say?"
"I don't know."
The story of me helping people with computers.
To be fair, that's learned helplessness.
How many times have you said 'yes yes, just click through that, jeeze'?
There is so damn much horrible shitty UX out there; 90% of the time users are just trained out of using common sense, and you can't blame them for it.
That other 10% though, goddamn. I swear if you moved their doorknob an inch to the left they'd starve to death in their home.
Also one my favourites:
„Nothing works, and this annoying message keeps popping up. I keep closing it, but it just comes back every time. Can you help me?“
Them: "All the PCs are broken"
Me: "ok, cam you see any lights on the monitors or on the front of the pcs"
Them: "i dont know"
Me: "ok I'll come have a look"
walks down
Me: "Ok show me one of the broken ones"
Them: "ok well its actually just this one"
Me: dont get mad, they are just an idiot
Me: turns on screen
Them: "how did you do that?"
Me AAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGG "magic 😀" AAAAAAARRRRRHHHHHGGG
The amount of people who work on a computer every day and still don't know the absolute basics is astounding.
I fully understand that someone who never used a PC doesn't know their way around one, that's absolutely fair, of course. But if they've used one for years because of their job, and are still not able to work out where that one file is...
That's just inexcusable.
Great job security for IT and tech support though.
I think some people are just wired to think in a way that makes the ways computers work difficult to understand. (Just like some folks don't have an inner monologue or can only think in images, or can't visualize anything at all). I've been the liaison between tech folks and non-tech folks in the same conversation with me needing to translate between both parties. They could not understand each other even in the same conversation.
I can't find files because they're buried in subfolders or split into separate drives because IT decides to change the structure of everything and who knows where where to find what if there's not a shortcut to what I need on my desktop. Did they put it on X drive or G drive or H drive? What folders did it get buried in?
Windows search is trash at being able to actually find anything.
I once had six monitors shipped to us from onsite, complaining they were all dead.
Each one, just twiddle the brightness knob right on the front (yes this was the 90s, CRTs with analogue knobs...) and they were absolutely fine.
More like my computer doesn't work. Error message at least implies the computer booted up.
The process of trying to get someone to explain their problem is so painful.
Even people on our fucking helpdesk write up tickets like that.
"Caller can't log in"
Okay what are they logging in too? What creds are they using? Are they getting an error message? what is it? WHY AM I HAVING TO FOLLOW UP WITH YOU TO ASK THESE QUESTIONS YOU STUPID FUCK.
Or the classic "I can't send email"... sent to us by email.
"I understand your issue, can you please provide me w, x, and y so I can proceed? Also did you try Z?"
"Sure, I tried Z! Here is W"
That's better than average tbh
I feel this.
What is the actual point of publishing knowledge bases and documentation if nobody reads them?
Preach
Or customer service for that matter.
I help companies sell products on Amazon.
One sold protein powder. Product title says "25g of protein". First bullet point says "25g of protein per serving". Main image of the product clearly shows "25g protein" on the label. Second image makes it more clear with "25 Grams of Protein Per Serving" in big bold letters. The A+ content (images in product description) repeat this information in big bold letters as well. Both the image gallery and the A+ content showed a picture of the supplement facts panel. The top rated review for the product called out that they liked the 25g of protein per serving.
Customer messages me, "How much protein per serving? Doesn't say anywhere on the listing."
Rage. Instant, immediate, and intense rage.
My time in retail and working at a liquor store have shown me that a significant portion of the general population are just straight up illiterate, mostly illiterate, or functionally illiterate. I had to stop allowing myself to get upset when customers would ask dumb questions for the sake of my own sanity.
I used to work in a store selling electronics - like Best Buy (but a foreign distant cousin). It amazed me that so many people were technically challenged.
I always had to assume that the individual I was helping was an idiot, because I had been dumbfounded way to many times.
I'm pretty decent with tech. I definitely know to turn things off and on again, check wifi connection, etc. I'm good with troubleshooting and such, but the IT person at my work who I interact with most treats me like I'm SO DUMB. But I try to remind myself that there are probably so many people who don't know where the power button is on any of their devices lol.
An example: I get logged out of an account on my computer, so I go to reset my password. The password reset requires an account number that I don't have
Message to IT: hey, I need to reset my password for this program, can you send me the account number for it?
IT: on the main login page, beneath the password bar, there should be a link that says "forgot password?" Click that and you should be able to reset it
Me: 😑 explains that if you click on that link it requires you to enter account number to reset it
IT: oh
In this particular case it could also be sarcasm because they found it funny (or were annoyed by) that it was mentioned so often. A troll, basically.
Yep. I've noticed this in maybe the last 3-4 years. I've actually wondered if i've started getting dyslexia.
I think realistically it's more to do with the way I use the internet. I scan articles rather than read them unless it's something i'm really interested in. Google search results, half of them tend to be bullshit so i've gotten good at scanning them at insane speed.
Yeah, I literally began typing this response before finishing your post.
...
It's like with increased information we've learned to scan for relevance a lot better, but at the expense of overall comprehension.
Like it gets us by, and gets us through the excess in time.
But, when emotions fly? It's getting volatile.
Massively! I used to read loads of books now I struggle to get through them at all.
I find it easier to listen to a podcast and scan the internet barely taking any information in from either. I have to really concentrate to do either now. I am working at it. Treating reading articles/podcasts as more of a hobby where I try dedicate some time to it where that's my only focus.
I recently got into a long, really dumb argument. I used the phrase "lesser of two evils" and what seemed like fifty people (actually two or three) seemed to think that meant I approved of, strenuously endorsed, and would defend the actions of the "lesser evil."
To me, this seemed like a basic misunderstanding of what the phrase meant, so I defined it. Their response to my definition was to say the same sort of thing they'd already said while claiming to totally know what "lesser of two evils" meant.
I lost my cool, and explained what the phrase meant again. One of the folks explained themselves calmly while the others seemed to think I was a congenital idiot because I kept repeating myself.
I don't want this to get any longer, so I'll just say that we were talking past each other. Nobody (well, except fr the one guy who stopped to explain what he meant) was really comprehending what the other person said. So everyone was a dumbass, basically. Story of my life, really.
At least, I think that's what happened. Watch the asshole who called me a liar and an idiot show up here to not explain how I'm a liar and an idiot again.
I don't think it's a reading comprehension problem, it's some sort of cultural problem. These people are reading what we are typing, but that's not what they want to talk about. So they will take anything, even tangentially related and disprove a component of it so they can reframe the conversation back to what they wanted to argue about.
I actually find myself doing similar things. Essentially I will write out a long winded comment, then realize that the person I am replying to has nothing to do with what I wanted to say. Instead I was paraphrasing all of the comments, coming up with a point I wanted to make and then ramming it round peg square hole style into someone else's comment tree. I have been deleting a lot of comments before even hitting the post button in the last 6 months or so since I realized I was doing it.
TLDR: A lot of people online are not arguing in good faith.
Lol, Lemmy is still small enough that I know the thread you are talking about. It was a political discussion, yeh?
If I remember right most of the people who argued with you were from hexbear, which tracks lol.
Yeah, that's the one. I figured I'm small potatoes so no one's gonna bother looking it up. It never even occurred to me that someone might have already seen it lol.
Or a troll. There are trolls, even here.
Remember when the internet used to be wall of texts. People used to write like writers do. Sentences and paragraphs that comprise a distinct idea. A collection of paragraphs that elucidate the point of view in their head.. These days the style of writing online is some kind of line-by-line disjointed train of thoughts. Something resembling a collection of 140 character social media posts. I find it more difficult to grok. Impossible at times. It's like people aren't writing for readers. They're brain dumping one liners off the top of their head.
The reason for this could be that people who are smart enough to write something comprehensible is most likely not going to do so because of the risk of getting comments from brain dumping people. Social media has given everyone a megaphone - even the dumbest individuals. They keep pouring their stupidity onto the internet for everyone to see.
It also doesn't help that you have meme texts that people will drop and derail the entire point.
"Long detailed documentation meant to generate intellectual conversation"
"Generate deez nuts 😂😂🤣🤣🤣😭😭"
I am a documentation writer at my day job. I spend an obscene amount of time writing and rewriting support materials for our software to make sure the instructions are as clean as possible. The end users of the software are busy doctors and nurses so I get why they dont have time to read and just want quick answers from our support team. I get that.
What I dont forgive is how many times the support team will complain to me that a scenario or a feature isnt in the documentation, despite me bolding, bullet listing, and highlighting THE EXACT THING THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT. I usually relink it to them and screenshot the relevant section.
People. Do. Not. Read.
What's a documentary you've made recently?
I came so close, ooo you fuckin got me
THIS. I literally got called into an HR meeting because one of our clients threw a giant fit claiming a large, world ending, apocalyptic problem, because of an issue that I already reported on which is literally above his hissy fit message sent on a Sunday morning and he got mad because I replied on Monday at 9 AM literally sending him the screenshot of me reporting the problem to him.
It's measurable.
In my country we have a central test for kids at various age, and reading comprehension is also measured. Every age group is doing worse and worse every time.
It's mind blowing to me, as a kis I didn't understand the point of the test, like you read an A4 page or two and answer questions about the text, that is literally in the text right there, it felt pointless. Well as it turns out it's not.
We are literally getting worse and worse understanding what we read. The future is scary.
People have been speaking out a long time about the shit education system we use in most countries (of the West at least), and pretty much nothing has been done, it's still the same assembly line "education" that pumps out kids that are good at memorizing and solving problems without knowing what they are actually solving.
Social media has also had a terrible effect for people's attention spans and analytical capabilities, and no meaningful restrictions have been put in place.
People have stopped reading books and long/difficult content, because there are much easier alternatives nowadays that their brain naturally goes for due to instant gratification. Also because of having less time and energy to devote after working and being stressed out for the most of the day.
The future is scary indeed, but it's important to note that we led ourselves here by constantly shoving our problems under the rug.
To that last point - it's not like we were all collectively consulted and had these issues put to a vote, so to speak. Many of these choices were made without our input, and things were just placed in front of us.
Lol I remember taking a state mandated reading comprehension test. The text was literally directions on how to assemble a grill.
I think part of the problem is that so many people nowadays are conditioned to consuming information in bite-sized chunks (eg. tweets), they now just focus on key words and assume they have all the context they need.
It's akin to the problem I see with technical support help desks, be it the IT support team at work, or my ISP or mobile provider.
They read a few words and parrot the nearest response from their knowledge base/AI bot, and call it a job well done.
I'm literally dealing with this at work right now. Three times on my ticket I've been told to undertake a series of steps, which I not only stated I'd done when I first opened the ticket, but I also attached screenshots proving it.
Fucking frustrating.
That may also just be a resources issue. Too many tickets, not enough reps, and the expectation of low average handle time are not exactly conducive to encouraging those deeper dives.
In other words, any text around the keywords is supposed to just be a decoration. Because the purpose of a comment is to choose sides in their greens-vs-reds game, you are not supposed to convey any thoughts, what a thought even is again?..
Well, I mean it comes down to a matter of costs.. If you can't afford it, you really shouldn't buy it.
Yeah I mean personally I prefer it on the left but completely
Sometimes kids have to learn self-reliance though, you can't always do everything for them, as tempting as that might be.
I completely get you. Bathing in the sun once or twice is not that bad for you.
Brie is only good as a spread though, if you're eating it straight you gotta go for cheddar or something
Look, if you're going to operate a dangerous piece of equipment without the safety guard that is your choice. But if you're making an instructional video, at least mention proper safety procedure.
As a counterpoint, I'd like to mention that people often scream "reading incomprehension" when actually, what they wrote was ambiguous or unclear.
Not saying you do this, just that I see this far more often than I see people misreading anything.
I used to work on an email helpdesk, and it was a real issue for me. So many people used to write "can" when they meant "can't". Working it out from context was iffy, because people also used to genuinely complain that the service made it possible for them to do things they weren't interested in.
Yes, I’ve been having trouble concentrating on reading, and understanding written text, ever since I started chemotherapy. They tell me the brain fog could last between four and ten years.
I’m also reading that some long COVID sufferers are having similar effects. I’ve managed to avoid COVID so far, hoping that I won’t get anything that makes the brain fog worse.
I think he was asking if you notice this happening more in general interactions with others, not in yourself. Can't tell if this is a good example of what he's talking about.
But why male models?
Prior covid infection has a well documented negative impact on the brain. I.e brain fog. Fundamentally covid causes vascular damage (blood vessels are harmed) and the brain is highly dependant on blood vessel health.
I've been really mellow since I caught covid and I like it. I'm finally happy. It's like when Homer put the crayon back in his brain because he realised that being smart made him miserable.
I wound up the same after picking up a weed habit as an adult - very mild persistent brain fog, and my memory has been affected, but I'm happier, and my wife is happier as a consequence. It's not ideal, but I value happiness over peak mental performance.
Bro
Dudes are out here straight up recommending the Brave New World Gamma experience.
Soma? Or has it been too long since I read the book?
Same. I fog myself through the frustration of realizing I've seen nothing but growing and inevitable dystopia around me all my life. Rode into the pandemic in a fully self-made burnout, realized being productive was mainly futile and destructive, and decided to just chill, with weed as needed. I'm not lazy or have given up, I just learn every day to enjoy simple and sustainable comforts and avoid consumption and energy waste, so I guess it's all about doing fuck all wherever applicable, with a passion.
That is crazy to hear. I always cherished the few days of recovery after I get the flu due to it stopping my head spinning with thoughts constantly.
Source?
Can I see the documentation? Couldn't find it and am curious :)
Pro tip: google “COVID brain fog”
I disagree, I think Alaska is fairly erogenous
OP, here's another one! This one's also pointing out incorrect facts about Arkansas!
that's Austria not Australia
Yes. For years now. And I am horrified.
I am a teacher and I've had students who could not find the article about lions from the animal encyclopedia I handed to them. And when I helped them to find it, one started crying, one tried to read it (stopped after a minute or so) and one asked "Isn't there some lion video we could watch instead?". It was two pages with a lot of pictures. But it was too much for these 5th graders.
Reading proper books has become almost impossible to kids because their attention span is almost non-existent with written material.
We've tried to add more emphasis on basic reading skills in the early grades for some time now, but it seems to have very little effect.
Is this actually due to attention span, or are these children basically illiterate?
https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading
Jesus. That theory is the one my professors talked about in university, as an example of "how to never teach anyone anything".
Absolutely. At work I realized that if I have paragraphs in emails most people will just read the first sentence and ignore the rest. I have resorted to breaking paragraphs in to very easy to follow bulleted lists and that seems to help a little bit.
I think the most common reason for this is that it forces people to go out of their routine/comfort zone to understand something, which many people aren't willing to do, either consciously or subconsciously.
Man this pisses me off to no extent. I put in a lot of effort into my work. Craft very detailed emails with everything spelled out, clear as day. Only to find out time and time again no one is reading my emails because they're too long, yet they have questions about certain aspects of the project.. THAT WERE ANSWERED IN MY EMAIL.
Sort of a paradox, isn't it? The folks that want the information will complain about having to talk to someone despite being provided info, yet they won't read for the information they've requested.
Do they want the information, or do they want a baseless basis of complaint? The world may never know.
Same here! I've been organizing g a union at my job, and my coworkers all value transparency and collectivism very highly, when when it comes to the actual work and effort of being collective....it falls short.
I'd spent mo ths researching, writing down meeting minutes, making Q&A sheets....All to be asked the same questions OVER AND OVER AND OVER. It's even worse when people are skeptical of the subject at hand, too. Sheesh
You're on Internet. Many people are not native English speaker.
Secondly, people are saying this kind of shit litteraly since anciant Greece. You're late to the party. They complained about it in each and every place of the western world at every time we have written records to read that shit. It's seriously amazing how this trope is one of the most consistent of the history of mankind. And it doesn't depend on the language obviously.
Iirc, even the Greeks bemoaned the written word because it harmed physical memory and made out brains weak because we could just consult tablets lazily instead of memorizing everything.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept13/2013/09/29/socrates-writing-vs-memory/
Socrate said that apparently. Fortunately they weren't all idiots so we now know that they would also say stupid things.
https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/08/whats-the-latest-u-s-literacy-rate/
54% of US adults only have a sixth grade competency level in reading. 21% of US adults are functionally illiterate.
Talking about the 3rd option I think that's the opposite problem actually. People adhere to the formal rules of the English language so strongly that a slightly incorrect sentence becomes incomprehensible to them.
Me can create word lines by using wrong words.
That sentence should not be hard to understand if you're actually fluent in English. Yet I see more and more people being completely lost and confused like they never even tried to understand in the first place.
Kinda like a spelling error in their there and they're. Contextually you should understand which one they meant regardless of mistakes.
There is no way they're being too formal with their writing.
Sudden? No. It's always been very, very bad.
Literally the comment I was going to write
I've only noticed a trend of people not being able to answer more than one question at a time, even when chatting and they have all week to answer. The first question is somehow always skipped.
This is making me mad, as I feel forced to pause my thoughts. Pause the ideas in my head. Wait for the reply, reply myself, wait for the conversation to turn a bit and finally be able to ask the second question. Now if I have three questions, I might as well give up and talk to a chatbot.
People have the attention span of a peanut by now.
Oh boy. Absolutely.
Even if I bullet point or number my questions, only about half of them gets answered. Like...what is your fucking problem?
In a professional setting, this drives me nuts. If I ask three questions, I need the answer to all three questions before I can do the thing you want me to do.
Online? Meh, normally there's a specific part of someone's comment that I'm interested in and that's what I engage with. If they want to talk about more, or talk about something else, I generally don't care and will discontinue engaging.
Sudden? That’s been declining for years my dude.
I’m lucky if people understand the first bullet point in my emails. I’m luckier still if they keep reading, never mind understand my next point.
Same. I could have the point highlighted, bold, all caps and underlined, and still get a reply all asking about it.
I think COVID did a lot of brain damage. People are acting crazier and more reckless in the last few years and I can't think of any other reason for it.
Some of the earliest studies I read about COVID was how it can enter the brain like meningitis and effect a person's cognitive functions. This was a while back and I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information, but seeing how much people have seemed to have lost their minds over the last few years makes me think back to that study.
I can't say I've been immune to it either. I have never been "symptomatic", but the last 3 years have definitely felt more hazy than the times before, and have made me question my own sanity.
thankfully I'd been vaccinated by the time I got symptomatic covid for the first time and I don't think I had any cognitive effects.
Yeah, it's wild how much denial we're in about this as a society. Neurological damage was widespread. I personally contracted Covid twice (that I know about) and had noticable difficulty with memory and keeping my train of thought. Something that I never had problems with previously. I think for a lot of people, the difference might not be that noticeable, and therefor is being ignored. I was a hypervigilant stress knot all my life. So now I just have even more anxiety because I can't remember the entire grocery list in my head anymore.
Staying inside for months to years and watching your society fail at things that are actually important to you is also bad for one's mental health. You don't have to actually get Covid for Covid to get you.
My new job has 18 people in a training class where we are asked to read the content out loud. The amount of grown ass adults that will literally make up different words blows my mind.
Not only reading comprehension but also media literacy and scientific literacy. Too many people misunderstand simple messages in media. Homelander from The Boys come in mind.
He's a cautionary tale, right? (Only seen bits and pieces of the show)
Most recently the complete lack of understanding of a wet bulb temperature comes to mind. In articles discussing this, people completely left out the "wet bulb" part, which they didn't understand, and went on to post comments about "65 DEGREES IS NOTHING, IT REGULARLY GETS OVER 90 WHERE I LIVE!!!". The audacity of some folks. It took me 5 seconds to Google wet bulb temperature to not look like a dumbass saying something like that with my whole chest lol
I don't understand, what are you trying to say? :(
Well I'm glad you got it, because I'm lost.
One of my tasks at work is creating content - blogs, social media posts, internal communication emails, etc. We are instructed to write everything at a 5th-grade level because that's where the average American reads. Not the lowest-level American, the average.
I also get to do customer support for people who would not have to contact me if they had actually read the information I wrote for them.
I'm a nurse and we were taught to educate patients at the fifth grade level as well. Believe it or not, the sex ed level is even lower! The average American seems to struggle with such topics as "it's bad to touch or be touched when the person being touched doesn't like it" and "don't put random household objects in your butthole."
I don't know if it's at a 5th grade level, but the XKCD comic has an editor that flags words that are not in the top 500 most used words. The author used it in a few comics to explain complicated things in "plain English".
All the damn time. Especially with work correspondence. For instance I'll say I'm free for X anytime but Y, and they'll write back, "Y works perfectly.".
Shit gets me heated.
Lol. That one makes me strip a gear.
Sudden? No, not really. People have sucked at reading comprehension as far back as I can remember (which is some decades).
I used to work help desk. Believe me, I know people can't comprehend simple shit anymore.
I'll generalize and say there are many my age in their 20s that watch things like TikTok and shorts that are conditioned for the fastest intake of media. This means ignoring the written word outside of texts.
Even myself, if I see a wall of text in an article, I know to skip the fluffer ad-reads down to paragraph three, then skim. To be fair most articles could be wrapped up to maybe two paragraphs but get extended for ad spots. Outside the context of reading articles on say lemmy, especially online, there is a largely missed hear mean not what I'm saying operating in good faith that often gets missed online. For example if someone posts an article about how smoking kills you, and I post a comment that "yes but its a creature comfort" I am not refuting it kills you - I'm merely suggesting that its a rough world and that people have vices to cope.
Nuance and assumption that we're acknowledging it is often lost on people.
What’s interesting is that articles are longer to keep you on the page for ad revenue. Videos are shorter to feed you a lot of different content quickly to keep you around for ad revenue.
Really, we’re all being programmed by advertising strategies and that’s why we’re fucked.
Tldr?
It's only going to get worse. 20% of the US is illiterate. 50% can't read above a 6th grade level.
Read that again.
1 in 2 people can not read above a 6th grade level.
That is a fucking insane statistic.
I believe it.
When I watch TikTok, the video will explain everything extremely clearly, and the comments are FILLED with questions or criticism that were answered or done in the video.
My favourite is when I comment on a Canadian TikTok page about something, and someone else comments "ughhh it's not illegal here and it's $5" and I reply with "what province?" and they respond "Texas". Like bitch, you're on a CANADIAN page, with the person clearly talking about CANADA, and you're talking about something unrelated in Texas telling me that I am wrong?
That is quite insane. You got sources?
Top hit on google: https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statistics#:~:text=Top%2010%20U.S.%20Literacy%20Rate,literacy%20below%20sixth%2Dgrade%20level.
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=223357864c90
Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/
There's a bunch of other studies out there that back that number...It's always generally 20% can't read at all...50% can't do critical analysis of text.
It's really ugly...Those people all vote, and I think it helps explain how the most vile ridiculous demons the R's put out there get 30%+ of the vote. It's extremely hard to refute lies when the person consuming and believing the lie can't read.
What do you mean "sudden?" It's been the bane of my existence since first logging into the Internet and discovering chat rooms in the early 90's, communicating solely by text.
The only trouble is figuring out who just doesn't understand and who is reading what they want it to say instead.
Idiocracy is slowly becoming a documentary, and I hate it.
The idiots in Idiocracy were aware of their own stupidity, and when they found someone smarter than everyone else, the idiots in power immediately stepped down and put him in charge of solving their most critical problems.
The idiots IRL think they're geniuses, and when the idiots in power find someone smarter than themselves, they run a smear campaign and/or incite violence against that person.
We'd be fucking lucky to get the future depicted by Idiocracy. Where we're headed is much, much darker.
Yeah... But not just reading. If found that I have to explain extremely basic story plots or what happened in a movie to people. Like they never watched anything that happened in it.
yes, interpretation of various things, not just reading normal prose.
Sudden? No. Been dropping off since Reagan started the anti-education push his masters wanted? Yes. The illiteracy and lack of critical thinking skills have (intentionally) been instilled, or removed depending on your viewpoint, from the educational process worldwide. And as usual... the 'wealthy' "have a plan".
I always hated that about redditers. They love to pretend they don’t understand people and then feel like they get bonus points if they can intentionally misconstrue your statements to be offensive or wrong.
I'm seeing that a lot here too, mostly from politically aggressive folks
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I don't know man, but I'll tell you this- I went to the UK to see a punk show and it got cancelled, so I went on the band's IG to see if there was a post as to why. There was, and as I tried to read some of the comments from users on the post my mind actually melted from how fucked up the spelling was. Not abbreviations, but just a shocking inability to spell very basic words. It's concerning
I think a lot of people used to pick up vocabulary and spelling from reading, if it wasn't books there were still news articles - they likely read something somewhere every day.
Nowadays they pick it up from social media, so they say things like mortified instead of horrified and weary instead of wary, and spell like shit.
Drives me insane. They think chic is pronounced chick. They think Ms. is short for Miss. And already is not a word.
During my grade six year (1992) I noticed when we would take turns reading pages from our english class novel that nearly every person was unable to comprehend, pronounce and read clearly.
I would finish the books in a day and have to go slowly through it with the class for the next two weeks watching people that were obviously barely literate reading the same books.
This was my experience in school too. I had no issues with reading and had to watch all my classmates in every grade fucking struggle like hell.
the worst was reading outloud and now I have panic attacks and I remember my first panic attack so clearly. I was asked to read out loud in class, and I did so well at reading outloud that the next time someone else was asked, someone wanted me to read instead and then teacher was of course like no, we all need to learn how to read outloud - so when it was my turn to read out loud again, I fucking flipped out. Couldn't breath normally, started panicking and crying and screaming.
And now I hate reading out loud. And I have gone through lots of therapy and no one has ever been able to help with my panic attacks. Well, outside of "here take these pills that have tons of side effects that will also ruin your life"
Do you know if the trigger is pressure, stress, too much unwanted attention, etc?
This IS NOT new, and IS NOT a sign of bad things.
100 years ago, conservatives could barely even read.
The only thing that has been on sharp incline lately is logical fallacies coming out of them. They're literally regressing, though they've always been hyper-judgemental idiots who are fundamentally afraid of reality.
Also, people jumping to extreme or nonsensical conclusions. Something like: "I personally don't like a cactus as a balcony plant." - "Aha so you think all plants should die?! I think you should die instead!"
Sometimes they will just make up stuff you supposedly believe and go ballistic on that. For some there really is no nuance and it's really tiering how this compromises more complex discussions.
At that point, you just call strawman and leave; no point in engaging with someone arguing with themself
Yeah nuance is an endangered concept... It's tragic.
Part of that probably is the education system; "Here's a multiple choice answer where several are relevant, choose 'the best' answer"
On the same note, people whose arguments are completely black and white, not wanting to see even the slightest nuance.
I think that is by far what annoys me the most.
So you can't hold yourself to a decision? Typical flip flopping nonprincipled [insert your political affiliation here]!
I've been a cashier for ages and a question that often pops up for customers on the payment terminal is "would you like to donate to X charity". How often people ask me what they should press, yes or no... I look at them ask them if they would like to donate to X charity and it's like a light goes on for them and they suddenly understand.
Would you like to help this retailer pad it's donations to have a smaller tax bill
Would you like to donate to some charity that will end up wasting the money and we can pad our donation limit to be taxed less
Yes it's just one of the many signposts on the road to Idiocracy
Reading compre-what now?
In general, or on Lemmy specifically? Because I've definitely noticed that some comment replies on Lemmy seem to completely miss the point of the parent comment.
for me I notice way more typos here than I ever saw on Reddit which I find odd. Both sites allow you to edit your comments..
From my experience, that was way worse on Reddit. But I haven't been here long, so idk
For me it's scanning vs. reading. Too often I'll think I've read something, react to it, only to see after the fact that I missed something because I was in fact -not- reading but scanning. Email is an example. I get so much of it, I scan and skim, and inevitably get bit by this bad habit, often more than once a day. It's a disservice to the person e-mailing me, I know, but there are a LOT of people and I suppose the (poor) rationale is that at least everyone is getting some attention. I know it's better to get to what I can and things that I can't just need to wait.
It used to be common that people couldn't read. 100 years ago children worked in mines and factories. What is old is new again.
So many people just make up what they want to out of anything you say.
If three astronauts are flying over the Gobi Desert in a canoe and they crash, how many pancakes does it take to shingle a dog house?
The answer is purple, because ice cream has no bones.
Wow. My sister is Chinese and this is not ok. She eats ice cream just like everyone else that's not handicapped by intolerance, and her bones are like steel beams. Purple? That's crossing a line.
I've given up reading every word these days. I don't have the time or capacity.
After skimming I'll either go back and read something thoroughly, or move on to the next thing. 99% of it will be forgotten within the hour anyways.
However I won't comment (and I try not to pass on) on anything I haven't read thoroughly.
If I'm going to read every word (like a critical acclaimed book or article) I'm going to listen to it on my commute/wind down time.
I don’t quite get your meaning here, could eli5
I recall hearing a long time ago that most news sites, magazines, newspapers, etc. tend to target a sixth grade reading level. So, I don’t know if there’s been a sharp rise, but it’s not really surprising considering how far beyond most readers should be.
Yes. I work in tech doing chat support. No one can fucking read. Or if they can, they suffer from selective reading where they just pick a word or phrase out of a message and fucking hone in on it like a missile strike and then they completely miss the context of what they were being told. They almost always have to have things reexplained because they just don't grasp reading a message and then understanding what it said.
Then when I'm online outside of work, I notice most people lack catching nuance when reading. This was especially true on Reddit and something I don't miss from there at all. Makes having a conversation online like pulling teeth.
It may have something to do with a change in how we teach kids to read in the USA about 20 years ago.
https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading
I think the comprehension issues are partly to blame for writing issues: people don't understand what they're writing, and then why it's not what they're (probably) thinking.
If you see people apparently unable to understand sloppy writing, maybe it's just they're fed up.
Toss a good 'litchally' or 'emails' or 'backupped' into the post and I'm all but done.
Wait what's wrong with emails? Like yes it "should" be E-mails but the word "email" is now in common use as a normal noun and can be pluralized just fine.
This isnt new. Anyone who has been on a dating site or app in the last 20-30 years will have stories to tell.
The same applies with ads for almost anything. I can recall advertising a property to let in the early 2000's, the ad started with the line "Non-smokers wanted for non-smoking property" or something similar, and I repeated the non-smoking thing or variations of it over a dozen times within the ad. A couple turned up to look at it, both carrying cigarette packets, one actually smoking on arrival.....
There's so much to read, it makes sense that our brains would start filtering things out.
This feels like it's it more than anything. We're still dealing with much the same brains that we had when the printing press was invented. Not too long ago, most people were living in small villages and knew little of the outside world. Now with everything online, our world has gotten much bigger. Of course we're going to struggle to keep up with the vast influx of information.
I have noticed it, but it's not happened suddenly.
It is not exactly sudden, it's creeping for the last 20, 30 years.
Yes, I've noticed a relatively large drop in reading comprehension among my close friends and family, and in the community in general. It goes hand in hand with the excessively banal small talk and their sudden inability to think critically. It's almost like they've been hypnotized or brain drained. It certainly is a cause for concern.
Yes, I've noticed this too. A lot of this. I might not have English as my first language, but the signs point to grammar not being an issue, most often people complain I use words with looser connections to what I mean to say. With this, people act like my sentences are impossible math equations. They don't want to hear about how those can be solved as long as nothing breaks the rules of formulation. The cherry on top is when they say something demeaning like "come back when you can say something comprehensible", never "could you clarify?"
If you're American, this may be why. 54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level.
https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy
You are seeing the effect of America's deeply rooted culture of anti-intellectualism and the decades-long Republican crusade to gut the public schooling system.
I am inclined to think that easy entertainment and a devaluation of the intellectual life (it is no longer admirable nor sufficiently valuable being an intellectual) can be a partial explanation. The first one leads to distractions and our time being occupied by mindless activities. The second keeps us there as people are indifferent to studying and asking questions. It has become a personal choice, a kind of hobby or trait of certain individuals, and not something that we all should be doing. And I'm not saying that everyone should be a Leonardo da Vinci excelling in philosophy, sciences, arts, etc.; but I do believe we should be thinking critically and informing ourselves to the extent possible, otherwise, our reading comprehension and many other things get affected.
I'm sorry if my grammar betrays my words, I am not a native speaker.
That said, I think these are some of our obstacles, but other times had had their own obstacles. I'm sure the average citizen from, I don't know, Istanbul, London, Tokyo, some centuries ago was also very opinionated and ignorant of many things. It has been the constant, the rule, for millennia.
Bro, you just outphrased the native speakers.
I do think you do be right with that.
On your latter point, I have taken to calling this "The Death of Expertise". Not only has the state of being an intellectual been diminished to, at best, a hobby, but much of the population legitimately abhors it. This might be something of a narrow view based on my US nationality, but I have been attacked so many times for using "big words to pretend to be better than I am" that I struggle to see it any other way. I have north of a 100k-word vocabulary if you include jargon and other specialization-specific words.
But beyond that, and even worse, in my opinion, is the inherent and immediate distrust I see in experts. People who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of singular branches of knowledge or tasks are summarily dismissed for the very act that makes them the people to listen to. For a personal example, I have an MA in Visual Effects and a BS in Applied Mathematics, making me an expert in VFX and the computational and mathematics principles behind it, when the on-set shooting occurred a couple of years ago with Alec Baldwin, some guy on Facebook suggested in a friend's post that all gunshots in movies should be CGI. I responded with my credentials and laid out not only that it was impossible, but also why in as lay terms as I could. He decided to argue with me that he was right and I should shut up, so I laid down a full mathematical analysis of the best-case scenario of implementing his change, with supporting evidence from industry standards groups, which showed that doing so would mean that every single VFX artist in the world would do nothing but put muzzle flashes on guns and it would leave about 3 man-months worth of time to finish every single other VFX shot for every other movie, TV-show, commercial, and music video. He still told me I was wrong. Toss on all of the 2020 right-wing nut jobs who emphatically believed Anthony Faucci was wrong and stupid when he is literally one of the world's foremost experts I epidemiology and virology, and so many more examples... People just don't know when to sit down and shut the fuck up because they are amongst their betters in some specific topic.
That kind of sounds like someone not being able to write / express themselves properly is trying to shift the blame on the readers.
Actually, I've started to notice this in myself, rather than in others.
It's also possible that the method of communication is just changing. I've found that often I have more trouble communicating in written form than conversationally, and I wonder if that's because of zoom and video essays, not to mention shorts / TickTok becoming more prevalent. I've also had my writing degrade just because I don't have a place or reason to exercise it as much. So what I'm writing is perhaps less comprehensible because it's more like a stream of consciousness.
Or more likely it's both - people don't do long form or even "hard" reading anymore, and so find more complex text incomprehensible.
I think this because of doomsday scrolling on our smartphones, we have ruined our ability to focus and concentrate.
I get this all the time. Too often I'll even get someone trying to pick a fight with me, but if they actually read my post they would find I agree with them. Either that or they'll bring up a point I already addressed in my post.
There's a certain point where if I feel someone's not comprehending what I'm writing, continuing the conversation is a waste of my time. Even insulting them would require literacy on their end.
I certainly notice it as I post a lot across networks. I always have a title with my content explaining what's what. There are so many times I have to reply to a commenter, saying "yes, that was what I mentioned in the post". Clearly, way too many just dive in and comment on a title without even bothering to read the post content. It's not that the content is pages long, it is usually maybe 3 or 4 paragraphs.
It's no wonder so much misinformation takes hold, as few take the time to critically comprehend what they're reading.
I think it is partly just fast scrolling and laziness to actually read the point being made. But then you may ask, why bother commenting at all then...
I agree with fast scrolling as the cause. All our social media these days emphasize endless new content to the point where it seems almost nobody reads the actual article anymore. I've seen posts on some of the politics subs on Lemmy where it's obvious not a single commenter actually read beyond the headline because they're totally missing some major point.
As to why they feel the need? I don't think it goes beyond validation. People know the sort of one-line comment that will get them a handful of upvotes and agreeing replies, so they rush to be the one to make the joke first. It really becomes a drag after a while when what you're looking for is actual discussion of the article. I find myself spending more time on Tildes than Lemmy because those sorts of low-effort replies are discouraged there.
Our attention span is getting shorter as tech speeds up. Reminds me of Paul Virilio's "accident" hypothesis also now AI coming into play makes it even more clear.
I've seen posts where I had to assume OP/the commenter wasn't a native English speaker, because of the sentence structure and odd choice of words. A multilingual platform such as lemmy, can sometimes leave you scratching your head. Since I don't speak a 2nd or 3rd language I'm always in awe of polyglots. I always try to offer an olive branch by assuming the fault was mine, and I wasn't clear enough in my wording.
however...
There are people (myself included) who will skim long form texts, rather than actually reading all of the words (thanks to every prof who's ever assigned busy work or HW on a school holiday). I can only speak for myself when I say, once I've skimmed something, if I get to the end and it doesn't add up, I go back and re-read it in its entirety. I have to imagine in a world of 6 billion people, there willl be some who don't choose to re-read the text, and choose outrage...also some people just think it's funny to be contrarian, there's not much you can do about that, other than smile and move along.
Tomorrow you will wake up, the world will be full of promise, and maybe a satisfying breakfast, and you won't even remember angry_commenter@lemmy.instance...they, on the other hand will wake up, and still be them...
I definitely see some clear "this is not their first language" posts, but I don't see a lot of overlap with the semi-literate stuff. They'll usually be pretty close with a missed idiom here or there, an uncommon word that's a slightly odd translation, or have some awkward habit on structure that's pretty consistent but just not quite right in English.
The "can't read" people are all over the place, without coherent structure, and just pull random interpretations out of thin air.
pretty much every time I see someone end a post with "sorry english isn't my first language" the writing was native-grade and I'd have never guessed
Considering busywork, many online texts are unnecessarily long in order to fit as many ads in between as possible. I've encountered texts (even about academic subjects) that are practically unreadable if you don't skim them, because they're not meant to be read closely.
Everyone knows what it's like to look up information on the internet nowadays: most of your time is spent on scrolling or clicking past ads and scanning webpages until you've found a source that's actually useful.
I think a lot of people have been trained to skim online texts because they're designed explicitly to waste your time.
Yes.
I firmly believe it has a lot to do with everything that used to be a well written article or website now being condensed into a video. I was never a good writer, but the only way for me to retain information is if it's in text.
Don't forget that we recently had a pandemic with a virus that is known to cause permanent brain damage. This includes reduced motor function, mental capacity and personality changes.
I am honestly starting to wonder if there's some as-yet-unidentified environmental factor at play like how leaded gasoline caused so many problems in the latter half of the 20th Century.
But with regard to your specific gripe, pedantry is a hobby for some people.
I've noticed it in myself lately. I'll compose a reply to an email and halfway through realize that the information I'm asking for is right there in the original email, or I'll start writing a reply to an online comment and realize that I have gotten the writer's point completely backwards. At least I catch myself, but it's really weird.
I think part of it is that I've come to the conclusion that most people are so stupid and lazy that my default is to assume that they don't know what they're talking about, or won't give me the information I need without special prompting on my part.
Microplastics?
Forever chemicals?
Covid?
At this rate there's a lot of contenders.
Sad.
TikTok
Disclaimer that I am completely talking out of my ass and speculating, but I have a personal theory.
COVID has been around long enough to have two interesting effects.
Well the atmospheric CO2 levels are rising, and higher CO2 leads to reduced cognitive ability. So I believe all the pollution we're spewing into the air is reducing overall human intelligence.
Yeah but indoor CO2 levels have been above outdoor CO2 levels by way more than outdoor CO2 levels have risen. So unless it's some kind of weird thing where you have to hit a particular low level regularly to avoid the effect, it is hard to see the mechanism here.
Most of social media has been like this for me since forever, same with RL groups I don't choose, like school or university, frankly.
Their intention is to value a separate person with their statement as little as possible (in extremes as little as themselves). Your comment isn't supposed to be considered an individual thought, it's supposed to go into predetermined classification, using some key words.
People with little brain power would simply feel themselves bad without such classification. While with it they can deceive themselves that their "yeah sure we believe you lol" is equivalent to a proper expression of your thought materialized in words.
Other than that, reading texts is a rare pastime for some.
It is an issue.
One data point. Stress makes people stupid. People are really stressed.
When I have to communicate to a group of people in an info-mailer at work, I list succinct bullet points now and high-lite the key words in them. Nobody reads anymore, it's a skim up until they see a trigger word and then it's over. People never read compl
Bullet points and starting each paragraph with @department so that everyone understands which section is related to them.
I started doing this and things were easier, although some department team members or even directors were usually terrible at answering the requested info.
One person from the security team was incredibly annoying as they always reply with really unhelpful one-liners
You must be new here, Welcome to the internet.
Have you seen the documentary Idiocracy? It explain exactly what the cause is.
Did you just call me illiterate?
I have felt this way for a few years now. It doesn't help that many of the family and friends closest to me are getting older. They definitely can't read as well as they used to. I have to make sure to word my posts on Facebook and Instagram very carefully and with concise, efficient diction. Any sarcasm or meaning left implied just flies over their heads. It scares me regarding when I get to their age.
Shadow wizard money gang, we love casting spells
This is the funniest thing to me right now despite the dead meme
We all have collective brainrot
Am I the only one that's scared this isn't from social media / attention span but actually maybe that a long term side effect of COVID could partly explain this? I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory and I've never heard anyone phrase it like I'm doing right now but it seems like this virus changes how we think. I've heard people say for the first time in their life they couldn't control their thoughts, my father couldn't stop having nightmares for multiple nights...
it is a symptom of long COVID, but i only think it exacerbated an already existing issue. It is the rise of dumb social media and dopamine addiction if you ask me. But what do i know
About a quarter past six......
Ever since i started using lemmy i started misreading words a lot
Are you calking me illiterate? Wtf man, get out tankie.
/s /j
Yeah, I feel like people just wanna start a fight without even reading what the actual argument is.
Nee, negen.
Oh hey, it's ThatWeirdGirl1001
I've just been assuming it's LLMs. From the CCP, advertisers, etc.
just because they're not reading comprehensive skills doesn't mean they're not learning
No. I have not. I think there has been a decent sized chunk of the population who has never had much interest in reading anything. That percentage has not made a noticeable spike.