Has anyone else noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- English not the first language for about 7.5 billion people on this planet.
- More people with English as a second or even third language have a higher reading and comprehension level than the average USAian
- Many people simply do not know how to write correctly, which only exacerbates the problem
The average American reads at the 7th- to 8th-grade level.
https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/08/whats-the-latest-u-s-literacy-rate/
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.
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.
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.
Sudden? No, not really. People have sucked at reading comprehension as far back as I can remember (which is some decades).
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.
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 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
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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 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.
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.
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.
Reading compre-what now?
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.
I don’t quite get your meaning here, could eli5
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.
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
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.
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.
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.....
It is not exactly sudden, it's creeping for the last 20, 30 years.
I have noticed it, but it's not happened suddenly.
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.
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.
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.
Actually, I've started to notice this in myself, rather than in others.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
It is an issue.
One data point. Stress makes people stupid. People are really stressed.
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...
No idea but I noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills in the comments everywhere! /s
Permanently Deleted
Did you just call me illiterate?
You must be new here, Welcome to the internet.
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
It’s because people become binary in their mindset. It’s either good or bad. No nuance about anything.
As such they only respond good or bad.
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.
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...
About a quarter past six......
No my eyesight is fine, what are you on about?
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.
Nee, negen.
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
Recently, I often misread words or even add ones that are not there. Long, complex sentences are very difficult to understand for me. I feel like primary school me would ridicule modern me.
Oh hey, it's ThatWeirdGirl1001
Check out the podcast "Sold a Story", it is made by American Public Media and explains, or at least tries to answers why functional and general illiteracy are so high in the US.
Very good podcastz just binged it today.
I... don't follow.
I've noticed it happening to myself. As I get older and older, I find it more and more difficult to focus on reading. Used to read all the time as a kid, but now in my 30s, I can barely finish a chapter, let alone an entire book. Having ADHD doesn't help, either.
I blame excessive internet use. Why invest in anything longer than a few seconds when there's just so much more content out there that's waiting to be seen?
Definitely not bots, right?
This is my daily struggle. Add to it verbal conversations as well.
That's expected. Most people have trouble with things like CARS.
Reading is hard 🥲
I'm going to assume people are having trouble understanding what you write and that if everyone around you doesn't understand.... Well that's on you.
yes, reading code to people, basic interpretation. It's a pattern that I think comes post Cambridge Analytica media tactics.
I think that more or less relates to FOMO (fear of missing out). Some really scare to slowly digest something because he thinks he would miss the vast information out there that keeps churning indefinitely.
The world and people have always sucked and been shit. It was never better. It'll never be better. From the moment I understood the weakness of flesh it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of AI doing all my thinking for me. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your fleshy memories of better times as if they are not decaying and failing you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved for the techbro grift is immortal.
In what sense, in what context?
Hmm. In the country where I'm from, absolutely, that's the case. The average level of IQ there is incredibly low, so it's not really surprising.
Generally on the internet? Well... kinda yes. Of course, I know there are many cases thanks to social media garbage that are making people unwilling to read and use their brains to think, thus degrading their abilities to pay attention for a longer time, which would be required for reading even just a moderate length of text. Yes, I'm fully aware of that, and that's a tragedy for today's generation.
So why "kinda"? Apparently I tend to follow topics that actually require a certain level of intelligence, and the communities there usually have adequate reading and comprehension skills.
But yes, long story short, that's the trend unfortunately. People just read less and less, and with that, their skills are degrading as well.
I can explain. I'm dyslexic and my particular form negatively impacts reading comprehension (it made my masters thesis next to impossible). But whilst I have the reading ability of an 8 year old, I lay a mean pipe and have many children. Essentially dyslexics are just out breeding you. Soz
Yes, every time someone disagrees with me they are clearly demonstrating how bad reading comprehension has become in the modern day. It's so hard being as smart and correct all the time as I am.
No, this talk of "poor reading comprehension" is always such nonsense. Arrogant, defensive nonsense. It's always peddled by people who get huffy when someone disagrees with them. Instead of considering anything wrong about what they said, they conclude that what they wrote is perfectly fine and the issue must be with whoever is criticizing them. And of course the issue is their intelligence. "Surely, no one would disagree with me if they actually understood what I meant! Those heathens ought read a book!"
When people clamour on about reading comp, I always just wonder: How could anyone be that naive? To think that human communication, stripped of the face, the voice, the presence, the context, the body language, reduced to text on a glowing plastic pop tart, would be so straightforward? How do you not see the myriad ways a single line can be interpreted? How do you not recognize the influence of all these different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences can have on how a single line is taken?
How the fuck can you reduce all of the nuance in language and text down to, "Oh, I guess you're just an idiot"? And how many of you are eager to jump on things I say here, such as that word choice "idiot"? As if to say "That word wasn't in the OP, you don't get it!", as if it wasn't a deliberate choiced based on my interpretation of OPs claim, and as if that doesn't just demonstrate the ambiguity of text? Or whatever other protests you'd make - I can think of a dozen things I wrote already that could be misread. I trust you to get it, and I truat you to ask if you don't.
This shit is never simple! Stop reducing it to "reading comprehension" and deflecting all culpability from yourself while simultaneously disparaging others' perspectives. If language were that straightforward, it wouldn't be complex enough to handle human experience.
Common core will do that
I think this may also have to do with a large number of people who have English as a second (or third or fourth) language on the internet. I think when producing online articles or (linking to them) we should keep this in mind.
I’ve noticed a very sharp increase in people just straight up not comprehending what they’re reading.
what's you sample size, where are you sampling from, and what are your methods?
I've noticed a lot of people using words in sentences that make zero sense. If they can fit any if the "ists" or "isms" in it they will even if it has nothing to do with what they are talking about. If you call them out for it they call you a dumbass. I just proceed to let them eat their own words with a simple dictionary link. I especially notice this in those "woke" people and lgbtq people. (Not hating on your sexuality you guys just can't use the correct words 90% of the time)
5G. They take your data. It penetrates brain tissue. You read and understand, but don't see it, because they take the understanding. To train their models. Reading is free, so you are the product.