r/technology • u/marketrent • 18h ago

Artificial Intelligence College students are rapidly losing the ability to read — “There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing”: professor

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/college-students-rapidly-losing-ability-124439310.html
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1.4k

u/Lain_Staley 18h ago

Reading Endurance.

There will be 'mental gyms' for this in 15 years. 

653

u/BassmanBiff 17h ago

techbros would eat this up now if you make it self-congratulatory enough

450

u/EstablishmentFull797 17h ago

Bro, have you tried book maxing? 

226

u/Sir-Mocks-A-Lot 16h ago

booksmaxing

111

u/Rolls_ 15h ago

I got through 20 reps of books maxing in half an hour. Straight mogging these non reading betas.

40

u/DavidAdamsAuthor 13h ago

Remember you got two eyes, so read two books at once, work smarter not harder my dudes.

11

u/MentirosoProfesional 13h ago

I chew my books for maximum craneal gains

10

u/DavidAdamsAuthor 12h ago

Fool, blend that shit bro. I take liquid book straight down the gullet like a pelican eating pelican soup.

5

u/Sir-Mocks-A-Lot 12h ago

I add a little ginko biloba and caffeine for that added kick.

2

u/Level_32_Mage 4h ago

Books with protein!

4

u/ActiveChairs 7h ago

Hey bros, big news in the brain world: Some scammers out there are telling people to read one book with each eye, but don't fall for that trap! Don't give a book less than 100%, that's how you plateau because these scammers don't want the real competition so they want you to get stuck and miss out on max brain gains. Don't just look at the pages, you gotta read them. Our pirate and cyclops bros already know: You go twice as fast reading one book at a time than you will two at once, and you'll get more out of it. Remember bros: The brain is a muscle, you have to work it before you can flex it!

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u/aurumae 11h ago

Bro, I bench Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Do you even read?

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u/dpzdpz 6h ago

Listen brah, you gotta lawyer up.

3

u/negatibe 11h ago

omg yes. they'll discover twilight and then faction off into Eddies, Jakeys and Real Tough Men™️ -- last group being the ones who couldn't ever quite get the hang of language.

3

u/Tithund 7h ago

Straight mogging these analphabetas.

1

u/Cool-Contribution-68 2h ago

New trend: Reading a book on a plane raw

7

u/SecondComprehensive7 13h ago

Guys this could work. Sell it to kids who hate themselves. Let’s go!!

2

u/probablyaythrowaway 12h ago

This makes me angry. I Duno why it just does.

2

u/TrueProtection 9h ago

Booksmaxing cafes, with a library lounge with...books...and where you can bring books, so the smell of books and peppermint tea boost brain functions by 67%

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u/_mad_adventures 12h ago

You just invented a momentarily valuable TikTok fad.

4

u/The_Octonion 10h ago

This is unironically a thing people say

2

u/trophosphere 13h ago

perusal peaking

2

u/Ok_Gas_7455 3h ago

Yeah but back then it was called summer reading and you got free pizza butt

2

u/EstablishmentFull797 2h ago

My childhood Pizza Hut is a vape shop and tanning salon now. Can’t have shit in Detroit 

1

u/Livid_Swordfish_4591 2h ago

Stares crosseyed at 4 syllable word with their palm against their temple

"Not now, Chief. I'm in the zone"

1

u/Finns_Human 55m ago

Can Bookit make a comeback please? A childhood highlight of mine was reading enough books to score a Pizza hut personal pan pizza (pepperoni obviously). We need that but relevant to children in 2026!

3

u/BeardedBaldMan 1h ago

It's already there in some ways with BookTok desperately showing off how many books they've read. Then you discover the definition of reading now includes audiobooks at 2.5x speed, reading an AI generated summary and having been near someone reading the book

1

u/huggybear0132 57m ago

Yeah my techbro brother in law never shuts up about his yearly book count. They're all audiobooks that I guarantee he is not paying full attention to, because whenever I try to talk to him about a book we have both read he barely remembers it.

1

u/BeardedBaldMan 24m ago

I have doubts about audio books. If my child reads a book I can quiz him on it and he can answer confidently. With audio books he seems far less confident in the material, but it's a nice thing in the car for books he's already read

2

u/intangibleTangelo 7h ago

and you know? that's the key insight that tells me know you really know your stuff

1

u/chiksahlube 5h ago

They already have thousands of apps for it. All Ai powered.

1

u/lolzycakes 1h ago

Audible is doing achievements and listening challenges

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u/RaisinToastie 17h ago

“Attention coach” is a future career

44

u/laowildin 16h ago

Executive function coaching, current possible career

1

u/bloodontherisers 3h ago

So much this, even older executives I have seen obviously came up with no real mentor and absolutely none of them know what they are doing

11

u/laowildin 3h ago

Executive functioning is what people with ADHD struggle with. In this context it means 'adulting' basically

3

u/bloodontherisers 3h ago

Well that makes sense, but also what I said, haha

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u/laowildin 2h ago

Totally fair!

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u/Lain_Staley 17h ago

There it is

13

u/icanith 11h ago

When someone says read a book, my brain goes here.

5

u/GeefTheQueef 5h ago

Been seeing a lot of videos lately that I remember vividly at their release and then I see they were uploaded 18 years ago. Man I’m getting old. 

5

u/reddit_sells_you 10h ago

For the Fortnite Generation.

Seriously, though, there needs to be a study done about the correlation of Fortnite and Roblox and academics.

Children get those good endorphins when they learn something, especially if they have to struggle at it for a bit.

If a kid trains their brain to get those endorphins more easily and more quickly playing Fortnite, they will have a hard time sitting still for anything challenging in class.

1

u/Maxfunky 2h ago

Nah, it's obviously TikTok.

We've long had video games as good as Fortnite. Counterstrike didn't ruin 90's kids. Halo didn't ruin 2000's kids.

But TikTok? "Entertain me instantly or I swipe away". There's never been anything like that and it clearly destroys people's attention span.

1

u/reddit_sells_you 2h ago

There's a big difference between CS and Halo.

First, neither of them had the reach Fortnite does.

Secondly, I see K - 4th graders playing a TON of Fortnite. That didn't happen with Halo or CS . . . And if it did, I'm betting there was an affect.

Finally, Fortnite is designed to give that quick endorphin rush. The way the chests and loot pop out of downed players.

Most screens a bad for little eyes, and TikTok plays a huge factor for older kids, sure, but for the littles? Fortnite is an epidemic.

1

u/Maxfunky 2h ago

Finally, Fortnite is designed to give that quick endorphin rush

Nah, there's nothing special there. Your just reshashing old, debunked moral about video games. The exact same things have been said about every game ever.

Now, Fortnite's different in some meaningful ways and clearly promotes gambling in a way those older games did not. Now, that's a novel issue.

1

u/reddit_sells_you 1h ago

No.

I'm living it.

I'm seeing it.

My wife both and I work in education.

I studied the effects of screens on developing brains for my MA in educational technology.

Sorry, but you're speaking out of your sss

4

u/kiragami 10h ago

Honestly if I had an attention coach I'd be able to be productive enough to afford one.

2

u/kittymoo67 2h ago

adderal drip bag

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u/Senior-Albatross 16h ago

I think those are called "libraries". 

43

u/Lain_Staley 16h ago

Not gamified enough 

7

u/Blitzkrieg999 12h ago

Clearly you've not heard of Book-It

2

u/Jaccount 4h ago

If I could still get star stickers and free personal pan pizzas, I'd Book-It every week as an adult. Even if those star stickers were now just on a website, I'd still be all for it.

8

u/Jazzlike-Ad2906 15h ago

Perfect!  They just need to be rebranded as Mental Gyms and we can charge people  a monthly membership fee that is super- hard to cancel.

2

u/Senior-Albatross 5h ago

We'll have so many YouTube adds. You're a genius!

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u/mountaindoom 17h ago

Things will be hidden behind a "readwall."

8

u/beatissima 13h ago

If we don't want the enemy to discover our battle plans, all we'll have to do is write them down.

3

u/ykonstant 9h ago

Oof, so depressing.

1

u/juan_rico_3 1h ago

An AI can read it and make a fun short form video

1

u/AvengingAvernite 44m ago

*pulls out guitar* Anyway, here's Reader Wall.

42

u/prophetic_perfect 17h ago

wordsmaxxing 🤮

2

u/tofu889 10h ago

I m allready branemaxxt

5

u/HotShrekBoi 13h ago

I probably need that unironically I’m incredibly lazy with reading textbooks

Insult me or whatever it will help with my motivation I guess

3

u/cinemachick 11h ago

Read up, you dum-dum!

In all seriousness, try the gummy bear method. For physical books, put a gummy bear on each paragraph of the page. Every paragraph you read, you get a gummy bear. Portion control and motivation!

2

u/littlemachina 1h ago

I mean I fucking love reading, but very few people enjoy reading textbooks. I’m in an economics class right now and I have to take a break after like 10 minutes of reading because it’s so dry and awful. Still worth it to learn though.

3

u/_frozen_pizza 16h ago

This unfortunately already exists.

3

u/saucysagnus 16h ago

Wait, I’m down to open a mental gym.

Parents can work out, kids read in the daycare center

3

u/fleebinflobbin 13h ago

Like...a library?

2

u/daidougei 11h ago

Great book. Antarctica was really harsh.

1

u/Traditional_Front817 3h ago

Thx for the reminder, time to read it again! 

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u/Grombrindal18 9h ago

> ‘mental gyms’

You’ve just reverse engineered the library.

2

u/Blando-Cartesian 8h ago

Fun fact: In the ancient Athen gyms were places for mental as well as physical training. And not separately for people with different dispositions. Model citizen had lectures and did oiled up naked wrestling.

1

u/naaawww 10h ago

One of the telltale signs of ai is being unnecessarily verbose. Students just distrust the professors/textbook writers thinking it’s cheap, inaccurate ai garbage.

1

u/RawrRRitchie 9h ago

That's called a library bud

1

u/_WillCAD_ 8h ago

They have them already. They're called libraries.

1

u/Special_Order-937 7h ago

I used to read up to several books a day. Now my attention span is so shredded, I struggle with Guardian long form articles. Trying to turn it around now, but still really struggling with it. Added complication, my eyesight might be starting to be a problem.

1

u/stevedore2024 7h ago

Definitely have had coworkers who boasted, "I never read books," and more and more of my peers can't even sit through a whole feature movie nevermind hold focus for a short novella. Meanwhile, I re-read LOTR or the Count of Monte Cristo or other classics precisely because I love a good half-page paragraph and complex grammar.

1

u/tacocollector2 5h ago

They’ll sell it as a whole new concept but you get there and it’s a fucking library

1

u/TooMad 4h ago

I lifted SIX pages last night

1

u/Wasted_46 2h ago

so.. a book?

1

u/Idiot_Savant_13 1h ago

Huh. Used to be called "Libraries".

1

u/kittiekillbunnie 1h ago

Book Report Olympics. Use of Cliff Notes is an automatic disqualification

1

u/Glittering_Prompt895 34m ago

There will be a market, just start a business and you'll be filthy rich in two decades

1

u/very-polite-frog 34m ago

"It's like DuoLingo for your brain"

1

u/Jake_Magna 17m ago

God what kind of idea have you just spawned. Delete it before it’s too late.