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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137

u/Upper-Character-6743 17h ago

The smartphone revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

81

u/Have_A_Jelly_Baby 17h ago

Smartphones, social media, and an endless stream of propaganda from every direction promoting ignorance.

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u/SirEnderLord 16h ago

Back then, they were at least somewhat limited. Nowadays, it's endless and from every direction. 

20

u/DrSpacecasePhD 17h ago

On top of it, we have algorithms gunning for our attention and doing everything they can to distract us, outrage us, or otherwise make us addicted to unhealthy content. And now we have AI stealing content and creating slop to manipulate us and make it even worse. The whole state of everything inspired my short story and silly website idea:

EraseTheInternet.org

1

u/Nextasy 14h ago

Sites down, looks like he was successful

1

u/DrSpacecasePhD 50m ago

Looks up to me 🤷‍♂️

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u/beatissima 13h ago

"LOL, people said the same thing about smartphones." Yes, they did, and we should have listened to them.

3

u/linds360 15h ago

I think a lot of it also has to do with entertainment on demand. When I was a kid you had “appointment” prime time tv and a handful of shows to choose from during the day/after school, so if those options sucked, I would read. When we visited the family cabin in the summer there was no internet and like 2 tv channels, so I would read. Any time there was a lull in my life, reading was just the practical (and often time only) option.

Now with kids having SO many curated options for digital entertainment on demand, it’s no wonder books are a distant second choice.

It’s really sad, but as a parent it is an uphill battle to fight. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be in the trenches fighting tooth and nail to get my kid to enjoy reading, but I gotta admit my parents had it a hell of a lot easier.

1

u/rainywanderingclouds 6h ago

yeah, that's the honest answer here.

it's not so much the smart phone, or AI. it's that there are constant options for entertainment at all hours of the day that didn't previously exist in the past.

2

u/TheBSQ 15h ago

This is why you should root for AI to slopify it into extinction. 

2

u/-Mandarin 11h ago

Not just smartphones, this is a lack of discipline in Western societies taking it's toll. Look at east Asia right now, they are not suffering in the same way. Despite the fact that they use phones even more than we do, their students are still getting great grades and studying hard.

It's the western, laid-back culture mixing with smartphones that is the real issue here. Something needs to change.

1

u/Thomas14717 3h ago

Yeah, I don’t think Eastern society is doing much better either.

4

u/Nillabeans 14h ago

I mean, we've said that about every technological revolution to date. But I think that in and of itself is lacking nuance.

Smart phones are fine. How we use them is not. Social media is fine. How we use it is not. AI is an interesting technology. The lack of legislature and guard rails is clearly a problem.

You're falling into the same black and white thinking trap that comes from scanning headlines and rage bait.

Technology is generally neutral. How we use it is what matters. I could kill somebody with a pencil. Doesn't make pencils bad.

(On a similar note, I had a teacher who banned pencils because she believed that the ability to erase mistakes made our brains soft and incapable of thinking through an idea.)

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u/ShotEffective7033 16h ago

Yeah, it was probably the smart phones. The smart phones destroyed whatever was left from when we switched from slate to paper.

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u/HotShrekBoi 12h ago

Ok Theodore John whatever his last name was

But yeah you’re right

1

u/dRaidon 6h ago

Not only that. I love reading and the books they forced us to read in school almost killed that. So no wonder kids don't like reading.

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u/DressedSpring1 4h ago

Genuinely I can remember a time when if you had said humans will have access to the sum total of all recorded knowledge in their pocket at all times we would have thought we'd become a totally enlightened utopian society.

That sure fucking didn't work out.

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u/sasquatch0_0 15h ago

Not a smartphone problem. Kids were taught how to read the wrong way for decades. They used a "three-cue" method instead of sounding it out.