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.
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.
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 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.
And I forgot about those one-liner replies with something semi controversial, without any sort of backing. In the few places where I’ve managed my own community groups, I made it a rule that you can disagree, but then have to back it up with some reference. That made it super easy to get rid of trolls, and supported better debate as it forced people to fact-check a bit.
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.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that people have stopped reading sentences. They’ll read all the words and then upvote based on the feeling those individual words give them. They won’t consider the meaning of all those words put together.
And yeah, “upvote does not mean agree” is something Reddit has always struggled with, but it has definitely had exponential growth lately.
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.
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.
to use more simple sentence structure.
to use simpler sentence structure.
use smol words
Why use many word, when few word do trick?
What?
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
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?
Fuck this is actually funny
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.
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 😂😂🤣🤣🤣😭😭”
Gottem.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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
For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don’t know there’s anything wrong with it.
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.
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.
