I recall hearing a long time ago that most news sites, magazines, newspapers, etc. tend to target a sixth grade reading level. So, I don’t know if there’s been a sharp rise, but it’s not really surprising considering how far beyond most readers should be.

Yes. I work in tech doing chat support. No one can fucking read. Or if they can, they suffer from selective reading where they just pick a word or phrase out of a message and fucking hone in on it like a missile strike and then they completely miss the context of what they were being told. They almost always have to have things reexplained because they just don't grasp reading a message and then understanding what it said.

Then when I'm online outside of work, I notice most people lack catching nuance when reading. This was especially true on Reddit and something I don't miss from there at all. Makes having a conversation online like pulling teeth.

If you're American, this may be why. 54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level.

https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy

You are seeing the effect of America's deeply rooted culture of anti-intellectualism and the decades-long Republican crusade to gut the public schooling system.

It may have something to do with a change in how we teach kids to read in the USA about 20 years ago.

https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

I think the comprehension issues are partly to blame for writing issues: people don't understand what they're writing, and then why it's not what they're (probably) thinking.

If you see people apparently unable to understand sloppy writing, maybe it's just they're fed up.

Toss a good 'litchally' or 'emails' or 'backupped' into the post and I'm all but done.

It is not exactly sudden, it's creeping for the last 20, 30 years.

I have noticed it, but it's not happened suddenly.

There's so much to read, it makes sense that our brains would start filtering things out.

Yes, I've noticed a relatively large drop in reading comprehension among my close friends and family, and in the community in general. It goes hand in hand with the excessively banal small talk and their sudden inability to think critically. It's almost like they've been hypnotized or brain drained. It certainly is a cause for concern.

I am inclined to think that easy entertainment and a devaluation of the intellectual life (it is no longer admirable nor sufficiently valuable being an intellectual) can be a partial explanation. The first one leads to distractions and our time being occupied by mindless activities. The second keeps us there as people are indifferent to studying and asking questions. It has become a personal choice, a kind of hobby or trait of certain individuals, and not something that we all should be doing. And I'm not saying that everyone should be a Leonardo da Vinci excelling in philosophy, sciences, arts, etc.; but I do believe we should be thinking critically and informing ourselves to the extent possible, otherwise, our reading comprehension and many other things get affected.

I'm sorry if my grammar betrays my words, I am not a native speaker.

That said, I think these are some of our obstacles, but other times had had their own obstacles. I'm sure the average citizen from, I don't know, Istanbul, London, Tokyo, some centuries ago was also very opinionated and ignorant of many things. It has been the constant, the rule, for millennia.

Yes, I've noticed this too. A lot of this. I might not have English as my first language, but the signs point to grammar not being an issue, most often people complain I use words with looser connections to what I mean to say. With this, people act like my sentences are impossible math equations. They don't want to hear about how those can be solved as long as nothing breaks the rules of formulation. The cherry on top is when they say something demeaning like "come back when you can say something comprehensible", never "could you clarify?"

Most of social media has been like this for me since forever, same with RL groups I don't choose, like school or university, frankly.

Their intention is to value a separate person with their statement as little as possible (in extremes as little as themselves). Your comment isn't supposed to be considered an individual thought, it's supposed to go into predetermined classification, using some key words.

People with little brain power would simply feel themselves bad without such classification. While with it they can deceive themselves that their "yeah sure we believe you lol" is equivalent to a proper expression of your thought materialized in words.

Other than that, reading texts is a rare pastime for some.

Have you seen the documentary Idiocracy? It explain exactly what the cause is.

Actually, I've started to notice this in myself, rather than in others.

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...

It's all the kids who missed two years of school because of COVID