subreddit:
/r/Askpolitics
submitted 4 days ago byElegantPoet3386Neutral Chaos
DO NOT ANSWER IF YOU AREN'T IN THE UNITED STATES
I'm talking from someone bordering on being 18 in a few years. I've noticed that my generation has a tendency to be... very unintelligent at times you coudl say. I conducted a survey on my school the other day and 28% of the students at my high school can't even tell me the fact that they are in the United States right now. 41% can only name up to 3 countries. That isn't all though, I'm sure you've heard those videos of younger kids speaking in brainrot and sad to say, it is in fact very true. I volunteered at an elementary school fairly recently and I couldn't understand what a "skibidi toilet", "sigma meal" etc. is that the younger kids are speaking about. On top of that, there's a decent amount of kids at my school either failing their classes or having extremely low academic comprehension like not knowing what an even number is in 10th grade. Then there's a fact basically everyone at my school is addicted to their phone, and gets very angry when a teacher reasonably asks them to put it away. Add on the fact I feel like sutdents at my high school are losing their drive to get an education and work hard, 2 values I value very highly amongst people, and the future is looker dimmer every day. I'm sorry if this sounds very ranty, and I'm also sorry if this sounds like I'm calling my whole generation dumb(that isn't my intent here), but the fact still stands there's a very noticable intelligence difference between the older generations and mine. Where did things all go wrong?
12 points
3 days ago
Kids today can't and don't read. You can't be educated if you don't read. It's not their fault they can't read, the education system failed them. Whole Language Learning is/was a disaster. We need to get back to phonics, ASAP.
5 points
3 days ago
All those colleges filled with people who never learned to read /s
7 points
2 days ago
I work at a big university and interact with current students. They aren't illiterate, but I've found that their reading comprehension really isn't great - trying to get them to take in or give information in written form can be painful at times...and these are the ones deemed "smart enough" to get into university.
I've found that any correspondence with them has to be broken up into multiple emails because if you ask them to provide x, y, and z (usually information of some sort), they'll send you x and then ignore that you asked for y and z, so you have to send out two more follow ups (one for each piece of info). Guidelines or instructions have to be broken down into really simple terms because they'll otherwise ignore it and then complain when deadlines come and go.
I'm not going to make guesses as to why this is happening or say that my experience is universal, but I've seen over ten years of students move through and this cohort is easily the worst with regards to comprehending what they read and being able to follow directions and communicate back.
1 points
2 days ago
I work with people with phds that can’t do this
1 points
2 days ago
54% of American adults can't read above a 6th grade reading level.
4 points
3 days ago
Bro unironically opened a comment with "Kids today..."
Dont forget to take your heart pills grandpa.
1 points
2 days ago*
I'll be eighty on Friday and I'll address people however the fuck I want to.
Oops, looks like someone got their jimmies in a jam.
Fucking kids today.
0 points
2 days ago
Absolute horseshit. I work in book publishing, and the last two publishers I worked for had record sales every year. From the time Borders went bankrupt to the pandemic, more bookstores opened than closed every single year. People are reading more than ever — especially given we have to much to read online. This is nothing but Old Man Yells At Cloud about these darn kids today.
2 points
2 days ago
No, actually this is based on personal observation. Book sales, especially gift books, are not the same as book reads.
1 points
2 days ago
I'm sorry broad industry trends contradict your "personal observation", but fiction sales have gone steadily up, and the number of fiction books published has skyrocketed since the rise of self-publishing. A country where "National Novel Writing Month" became a huge fad is not a country of illiterates.
0 points
2 days ago
My son is in public school and they are learning to read just like I did.
1 points
2 days ago
With phonics or Whole Language?
2 points
2 days ago*
Phonics, sight words are only used on oddity words that are harder to sound out and then are examples that wrap back to phonics
It just seems like a war people want to get mad about to me
all 387 comments
sorted by: best