Asklemmy

What?

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 disagree. It's a very good game, but I think Donkey Kong is the best game ever.

At work if I ask 2 questions in an email I’m guaranteed 1 or 0 answers.

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.

May I suggest that you don't get a job in IT?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Well, I mean it comes down to a matter of costs.. If you can't afford it, you really shouldn't buy it.

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.

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.

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 disagree, I think Alaska is fairly erogenous

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.

1. English not the first language for about 7.5 billion people on this planet.
2. More people with English as a second or even third language have a higher reading and comprehension level than the average USAian
3. 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/

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 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.

Sudden? No. It's always been very, very bad.

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.

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.

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? 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.

I don't understand, what are you trying to say? :(

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.

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.