this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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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.

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[–] Gnubyte@lemdit.com 23 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] xoagray@pawb.social 21 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Idiocracy is slowly becoming a documentary, and I hate it.

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[–] HowMany@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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".

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[–] PolyLlamaRous@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] wallybeavis@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago
[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Mane25 20 points 1 year ago

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[–] mycatiskai@lemmy.one 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] MargotRobbie@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

Reading compre-what now?

[–] Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yes it's just one of the many signposts on the road to Idiocracy

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[–] thenerdjournals@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Jumper775@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

I don’t quite get your meaning here, could eli5

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] cubedsteaks@lemmy.today 14 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] janNatan@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[–] AverageCakeSlice@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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