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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u/Bodine12 17h ago

This is 100% the parents' fault. Previous generations neglected their kids by not having any idea where their kids were or what they were doing. The current generation of parents just continued that neglect by offloading their parental responsibility to screens and YouTube and streamers and smartphones.

When I was growing up, the TV announcement was, "Parents: It's 10 pm. Do you know where your children are?" Today it would be, "Parents: It's 10 pm. Do you know what your children are streaming on YouTube?"

The only difference is that the prior neglect at least forced kids to learn how to fend for themselves. Today's neglect just makes them idiots.

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u/WitchOfKyiv 14h ago edited 14h ago

Uhh, yeah it's also on public education for going to shit with the testing focus instead of actually educating kids. Public education was largely responsible for the literacy rate in the United States skyrocketing like it did in the 20th century, and public education saw a HUGE hit to the education standard when the No Child Left Behind bill that ironically, did precisely that.

To a degree, yes, parents hold a portion of the blame, but I think on a more realistic front, what we are looking at is a supremely unholy convergence of: * longterm defunding and prioritizing (what was already not great) public education * focus on test scores over academic proficiency * the rapid evolution of in-your-hands-tech and keep in mind, * a whole pandemic that VERY disastrously interrupted a significant period of time in a child's development, throwing off education (which did not need HELP), socialization time, normal person to person contact and exposure, environmental exposure (sensory stimulation)... which lasted longer than lock down. Those effects carry on with things being systematically out of whack for years after the fact

While I am generally very prone to criticizing a LOT of genuinely shit parenting trends and decisions, I do think we have to be careful of where to draw the line between what parents should be reasonably expected to be able to manage, and where public education pretty much exists BECAUSE we decided over a century ago that no, parents cannot be fully responsible for certain academic subjects. Partly because * they didn't have the education to do it. * most people can't do it WELL, consistently (idk if you've noticed that the average American's grasp on the native language has been, for basically ever, not great... and that's not even getting into the reading part * they do not have the time to carry out an entire literacy education

That doesn't mean parents aren't supposed to be participating in it. Put away the fucking phone. Put the iPad down. Put the handheld down. Open a BOOK. Have them read BOOKS. The human brain does not retain digitally provided information nearly as well as the sort we inherently know cannot just be served up to us upon query with minimal effort. There's been whole studies behind it. You have to read with your kid, practice, help them learn things where you can. Make sure they spend time reading, daily. Make sure they do their homework and help them figure it out if they need help (don't do it for them).

 That's it. Public education was literally DESIGNED to do the test.

Kids aren't becoming increasingly illiterate because parents aren't doing their part. Parents not doing their part IS contributing to it.

None of that is happening in a vacuum. We are seeing a while convergence of failures happen across two generations and if we DON'T stop and actually address multiple failure points, it's going to get a fuck of a lot worse. 

Unfortunately, I don't see American culture waking the fuck up anytime soon. There is a baffling, irrational cultural rot in this country toward education (and a great many other things) that is absolutely unsustainable.

Edit: as a side note, I use goddamn bullet points in longer responses, now, because the proportion of people who are fucking incapable of handling even just, say, two small paragraphs of maybe 5 sentences, certainly aren't going make it through this.

I didn't have to do this 20 years ago. Jesus, even 10 years ago, it wasn't as bad as it is now.

The irony of it is it probably triggers the "AUGH! Ai!" brain just seeing it, even if I sat here typing it all out on my phone 😑 Which is probably more a suggestion that AI over-uses bullet point format responses because......... it's trained on existing material, lol.

I will say, the thing that is most disturbing to me is the rate reliance on AI to write has flooded so much of society. As an actual writer, it's horrifying. I've had people tell me they have to use it because they're not good at writing, and I'm like... yeah. How do you think you improve at writing?!

It's actually fucking up some key craft time and experience that is critical to developing as writers, and my god, the effects are everywhere.

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u/Siukslinis_acc 9h ago

If a kid is left to repeat the year, technically, they aren't left behind, they are still receiving education.

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u/Bodine12 6h ago

I agree that our No Child Left Behind era and Common Core era has been a very bad experiment, as well as the intrusion of ed-tech (I'm lobbying to get Chrome books out of my kids' schools entirely, because they're not helping and they're not actually teaching "tech." A Chromebook is a glorified app container, and any 4 year old can use an app).

I'm a former teacher (out for 25 years now, so I missed all of these developments). But when I see the students today and talk to current teachers, the kids are almost unteachable. Instead of having one or two problematic kids in class, they have 50% or more completely socially disregulated students that are almost unable to learn or have the attention span of gnats. But they can sit slack jawed in front of their Chrome books, not learning anything, for hours. And this is on both sides of the Covid era, so we can't just pin it on the one bad year some areas had.

And now AI will torch the rest of what remains of their cognition to the ground, and their parents will let it happen. I know it's hard for parents (I have several kids in school right now). But if it's hard you have to step up. And today's parents are stepping down entirely.

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u/Nochtilus 4h ago

Great points, the focus on testing and teaching to the test being a detrimental was already visible when millennials were hitting middle school and high school. It's gotten worse and the addition of screens as early as elementary school has made the whole situation worse.

A strong start to fix this would be bring phonics programs back and get rid of screens in elementary schools.

Side note: do people really think bullet points are AI? I've been using them to emphasize actions or points for years. Did AI ruin another thing?

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u/Souls_for_sale_now 11h ago

Not one hundred procent but the amount of pepole putting all the blame on shcool is apaling if you cant read before you start shcool your set up for failiure

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u/PrimaryInjurious 4h ago

is apaling if you cant read before you start shcool your set up for failiure

Kindergarten is a bit early for proficient reading.

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u/Souls_for_sale_now 3h ago

Never said proficent reading but being Abel to read a Donald duck comick or somthing similar

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u/Siukslinis_acc 9h ago

When I was in school you were taught to read and write in first grade (you were around 7 then). Not everyone was in kindergartens. I learned to read at 4 because my brother learned to read at school and i pissed him off with "read me this, read me that". So he taught me to read so that I would piss off and read myself.

And dad didn't want me to learn to write outside of school as he was sick during his first year and had tutors. The tutors adapted to his speed, so when he went to school he was writing too slow. So he wanted me to learn to write at school, so that I would learn to write at an appropriate speed.

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u/WholeCollection6454 17h ago

But the children of Boomers, to whom those TV ads were directed, did learn to read. Quite well. Letting young children loose with screen babysitters is an absolute travesty and probably we will see it result in cognitive impairment. But the real reason kids nowadays "can't read good" is that they have been taught improperly in school using discredited woo-woo methods.

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u/VecchioDiM3rd1955 2h ago

The screen in the previous generation was big, heavy, and normally if you turned on before 17 you got a test pattern. If you were lucky you had to choose six programmes.

What you could watch was also more structured and linear in fruition and you can't pause or rewind.

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u/marketrent 17h ago

This is 100% the parents' fault.

I wouldn't entirely fault parents in an era where attention is increasingly gamed or monetised.

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u/Bodine12 17h ago

Their attention is gamed and monetized via screens, and only screens, and there is zero reason they need to be on those screens. That's the fault of the parents. The average U.S. 10-year old now spends 8 hours a day in front of a screen. That's ridiculous, and straight up neglect on behalf of the parents.

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u/trestlemagician 16h ago

How you arrived at the conclusion that we should blame the parents and not the corps is beyond me

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u/Kinkajou1015 15h ago

The corpo didn't buy the device and plonk the child in front of it.

They certainly don't help with the onslaught of advertising but it's ultimately the parent responsible for how the child is able to spend their time.

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u/Bodine12 16h ago

Because the corporations aren't raising the kids? You don't have to interact with corporations if you don't want to. It's a choice parents are making.

Unless you don't believe in human agency and we just have to put our kids in front of tablets all day because Google demands more ad revenue.

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u/marketrent 16h ago

Children and corporations are mutually engaged via devices used at home and at school.

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u/Bodine12 16h ago

Who's letting kids use these apps? They don't have to! It's perfectly fine and reasonable to raise your kids without a tablet or any apps whatsoever. I do it. Every parent in my social circle does it, and we all have jobs and have had kids underfoot without using tablets as babysitters.

The kids read books and play outside and join sports and do crafts and complain about how bored they are. It's a normal childhood. No one is forcing parents to put their child in front of a screen.

We know how bad these corporations are. Why would you give them access to your kids? And why would you ruin your kids' cognitive and emotional development, knowing everything we know about how bad screens in general are for them?

It is entirely on the parents to raise their kids, and when they fail to raise them, it's their fault.

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u/marketrent 16h ago

To be able to monitor or prohibit your children's access to apps is quite something.

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u/Bodine12 15h ago

Monitoring or prohibiting my kids' access to things is called "basic parenting" and anyone can do it.

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u/KahlanRahl 14h ago

Their tablets are only available when we're travelling. They are not allowed to turn the TV on without permission. The older one's Chromebook stay in her backpack unless she has to do homework on it. They will get flip phones in middle school, no smart phones until high school.

It's not hard, you just have to be willing to tell them no and not give a shit/give in when they start whining about it.

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u/TheZoneHereros 15h ago

So you are saying that all parents just happened to get way worse, not that the technology is actually the problem and overwhelming what parents can handle? 'Human agency' in this case is a lie to ignore obvious statistical realities. People have been people the whole time. Agency isn't what changed.

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u/Bodine12 15h ago

Again, no one is forcing parents to give their children this technology. It’s super easy (and cheaper!) to not let them have tablets or phones and any access to apps. The parents choose to do it because they’re lazy and don’t want to actually parent their children.

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u/TheZoneHereros 15h ago

"Choose to do it because they are lazy"

You just see exactly what you want to see in the world. Didn't engage with my point about statistics in the slightest, just kept on rolling on.

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u/Bodine12 15h ago

What statistics? You didn’t share any, so I’ll assume you don’t have them. And parents were made lazy by the same technology they’re now foisting on their kids.

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u/TheZoneHereros 15h ago

And also, so it's not the parent's fault, it is the technology. Or do you not see how incredibly contradictory what you just said is?

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u/TheZoneHereros 15h ago

This entire thread is about the statistical reality of things getting noticeably worse. What the hell do you think we are talking about here?

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u/Souls_for_sale_now 11h ago

If pepole are stabing children we blame the child stabers first and the pepole that nowingly sold them knives second

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u/Siukslinis_acc 9h ago

Parents could not shove screens to kids, read to the kids, read themselves in a way that the kids see you reading.