Just as the title asks I’ve noticed a very sharp increase in people just straight up not comprehending what they’re reading.
They’ll read it and despite all the information being there, if it’s even slightly out of line from the most straightforward sentence structure, they act like it’s complete gibberish or indecipherable.
Has anyone else noticed this? Because honestly it’s making me lose my fucking mind.
What?
Fuck this is actually funny
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It’s just common sense.
Is this what it’s like to have a stroke?
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.
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.
One of my last comments on Reddit was about this.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that people have stopped reading sentences. They’ll read all the words and then upvote based on the feeling those individual words give them. They won’t consider the meaning of all those words put together.
And yeah, “upvote does not mean agree” is something Reddit has always struggled with, but it has definitely had exponential growth lately.
It has made me start writing more clearly. There are comments I’ve written that have been wildly misinterpreted from my actual meaning. Part of that is that I tend towards sarcasm, and it doesn’t translate well over the internet no matter how absurd I get with it. But I’ve also started aiming to use more simple sentence structure.
to use more simple sentence structure.
to use simpler sentence structure.
use smol words
One of my favorite Redditisms was picking out incredibly obvious sarcasm with massive downvotes. Bonus points if replied to with a huge angry essay.
And due to the voting patterns, I learned to be suspicious of my own comments that were highly upvoted. I started to see it as a bad smell. My best work was the controversial stuff.
Sudden? No. Been dropping off since Reagan started the anti-education push his masters wanted? Yes. The illiteracy and lack of critical thinking skills have (intentionally) been instilled, or removed depending on your viewpoint, from the educational process worldwide. And as usual… the ‘wealthy’ “have a plan”.
I certainly notice it as I post a lot across networks. I always have a title with my content explaining what’s what. There are so many times I have to reply to a commenter, saying “yes, that was what I mentioned in the post”. Clearly, way too many just dive in and comment on a title without even bothering to read the post content. It’s not that the content is pages long, it is usually maybe 3 or 4 paragraphs.
It’s no wonder so much misinformation takes hold, as few take the time to critically comprehend what they’re reading.
I think it is partly just fast scrolling and laziness to actually read the point being made. But then you may ask, why bother commenting at all then…
I agree with fast scrolling as the cause. All our social media these days emphasize endless new content to the point where it seems almost nobody reads the actual article anymore. I’ve seen posts on some of the politics subs on Lemmy where it’s obvious not a single commenter actually read beyond the headline because they’re totally missing some major point.
As to why they feel the need? I don’t think it goes beyond validation. People know the sort of one-line comment that will get them a handful of upvotes and agreeing replies, so they rush to be the one to make the joke first. It really becomes a drag after a while when what you’re looking for is actual discussion of the article. I find myself spending more time on Tildes than Lemmy because those sorts of low-effort replies are discouraged there.
And I forgot about those one-liner replies with something semi controversial, without any sort of backing. In the few places where I’ve managed my own community groups, I made it a rule that you can disagree, but then have to back it up with some reference. That made it super easy to get rid of trolls, and supported better debate as it forced people to fact-check a bit.
