Are people getting dumber?

[Anonymous]

Yes. The attention spans are shot. Kids can't read longer sentences or retain information. Same for many adults. It's dramatically worse in the last 7 years. I work with a lot of people and have had to explain how to do something much more in the last year than I years past. People what a short distilled explanation instead of reading and figuring it out for themselves and drawing conclusions.
We are in a world of tweets, bullet points and Tik tok sound bites. And I'm not as old as the OP even. Best thing I've done is take screens away from my kids on weekdays and meter out carefully on weekends.
My own phone addiction is terrible too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The attention spans are shot. Kids can't read longer sentences or retain information. Same for many adults. It's dramatically worse in the last 7 years. I work with a lot of people and have had to explain how to do something much more in the last year than I years past. People what a short distilled explanation instead of reading and figuring it out for themselves and drawing conclusions.
We are in a world of tweets, bullet points and Tik tok sound bites. And I'm not as old as the OP even. Best thing I've done is take screens away from my kids on weekdays and meter out carefully on weekends.
My own phone addiction is terrible too.

i ain't reading all that. happy for u tho

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to sound like a grumpy old person (I’m 52), but is it me or are people getting dumber? It feels like people struggle to follow very basic directions generally and maybe it’s just that no one reads anything anymore, but we belong to a group that has sign ups for classes 4x a year and I’m amazed that families who have been doing this for years suddenly seem wildly confused about the process. Or can no longer navigate to a location without gps even though you give them simple verbal directions (eg Take X road, turn right at the light and we are the second house on the left). Or no longer try to figure something out before searching google/You Tube. Or are so easily sways by whatever they read on the internet, that we have people who are well educated spouting off crazy tunes conspiracy theories. I could go on and on, but I’m starting to feel like I live in the twilight zone.

The PUBLIC education in the US is terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the last few decades the rich are hoarding wealth and wealthy & smart families are increasingly clustered in exclusive enclaves. They don’t live amongst the serfs anymore in middle class neighborhoods. The result is low and middle class towns, if not huge swaths of the U.S., have too few smart families propping up the gene pool and test scores.

Are you suggesting only the wealthy are smart???