I believe there are also plenty more nations who are witnessing the same thing, and more to follow. — Christoffer

Yes, here too.

There are no long sentences and paragraphs in the same way as previous generations used in writing. — Christoffer

True. When I read your argument, I thought about encyclopedias. Although it is true that Wikipedia—and the Internet altogether—is a great invention to have access to information, I think they limited the people to go deeper into every topic. For example, I want to know some details about Sweden. If I searched on Wikipedia, I would discover basic info such as the capital city, GDP, extension, etc. But if I decide to take a book of Scandinavian studies, my knowledge about Sweden will be deeper, better, and higher in quality. Sadly, it seems that people only want to focus on the surface.

They don't write letters, they don't write posts like this, no actual arguments or stories; they write in short forms that themselves consist of even shorter elements, previously emojis, but now also acronyms and made-up words conveying specific meanings spread as word-based memes (not just visual ones). — Christoffer

Believe it or not, I still write letters often. It helps me to keep up with grammar and creative writing in my own language. I don't have anyone to send those. I remember that I wanted to send a letter to Alkis Piskas—a TPF member. It was fun. But I see a lot of difficulties in actually getting my letter to be sent to Greece. It is not impossible, though. On the other hand, I think emojis are a good internet tool. I like to use them—you can perceive that I use them a lot on TPF.

What exactly is going on here? — Christoffer

It comes a lot of things to mind, but I personally believe that reducing the effort in education drove us to the current scenario. Some believe that studying a lot of hours is bad for children. Others think otherwise. I think that grammar and complex readings are crucial for a child when he is learning. Instead of continuing watching anime or cartoons all the time, they should read texts and do poetry. But for real. Not just to pass exams. If I were a professor, I would evaluate more the grammar than the content itself. Maybe a student is great in math, but if his grammar is terrible, I think he should not be able to promote. Simple.

Furthermore, let's be honest. People always valued science over language. It is a terrible mistake, in my opinion.

What in culture and education fails to form these abilities? — Christoffer

We—the millennial generation—are guilty, not just education and culture. I would like to know if you were thinking about a private or public educational system, or if this is not relevant at all.

Several things happened.
Before the internet, children were dumbed down by television. While there was some educational and socializing content, most children's programming was purely for amusement, and much of it was anti-intellectual. The more time children spent looking at moving pictures, the less they read.

Before the 1950's, American schools were quite strict and punitive. During the 60's, the power of administrators and teachers was curtailed. To a large extent this was necessary to prevent harsh treatment of children; OTOH, it also reduced student discipline. A number of innovations were tried at that time, some more effective than others, but they generally allowed students to move on to the next level without having fully mastered the basic skills. Within a year or two, the weaker ones would be hopelessly out of their depth, just marking time until they could legally quit. Some of these potential school-leavers were then diverted to vocational programs - or entire separate schools - where academic subjects were neglected.
Meanwhile, teachers had classes of 35 and more students, due to the post war baby boom; they were required to take courses in the new methods in their spare time; they were expected to lead extracurricular activities and supervise lunchrooms, schoolyards, sporting events and dances, and their routine paperwork tripled inside of a decade. When were they supposed to provide extra help for the slower students?

As the general population's reading and math skills declined, news and public affairs outlets adjusted their vocabulary, the structure of their articles and the level of detail in their reports. Over time, information was gradually reduced to generalities and sensations. Schools, too, had to lower their standards in order to keep promoting students, up and out to make room for the new ones.

Since states are in charge of setting curriculum and administer the main funding of schools, poor states and poor neighbourhoods have poor public schools. Additionally, as the standard of living of low-paid workers stagnates or declines, parents have less time to spend with their children; there is little privacy in cramped homes to do homework, and books are generally absent.

As the religious factions push for less science and more scripture; conservative local governments and school boards ban or reject more and more books, and forbid the discussion of a range of disapproved topics, bar critical thinking instruction and unrevised history courses, there is a homogenization of thought which doesn't require analysis or comprehension of complex ideas.

A polity that thinks in slogans and jingles is easier to control than one that arms itself with facts.

It seems to be more than just lacking high level communicative capabilities. That they are unable to form complex thoughts and reasoning.

What exactly is going on here? What in culture and education fails to form these abilities? — Christoffer

The intelligence of a collective group or population can change. This has been discovered by historians. Reading comprehension, depth in understanding, and ability to construct complex written or spoken narratives can be undermined by technology, among other things.
So, then the question becomes, can a reduced intelligence be the cause of a downfall of a culture? Yes! We've seen over histories that cultures/kingdoms had risen, reached their glorious era, then vanished.

If I were a professor, I would evaluate more the grammar than the content itself. Maybe a student is great in math, but if his grammar is terrible, I think he should not be able to promote. Simple. — javi2541997

Where I taught we went through a gentler version of this, grading partly on grammar. But trying to teach both subjects simultaneously was counter productive. And I am not sure the ability to write lengthy pieces with delightful descriptive flourishes is an admirable trait where succinct, to the point passages would suffice - in fact, be more readable. For example, many long convoluted posts made on this site.

But trying to teach both subjects simultaneously was counter productive. — jgill

I understand, yet I was referring to a special group of students. I meant the ones who are around 17 or 18 years old, and they are nearly finishing high school to enrol in university. Some of the are good—or even brilliant—on maths, literature, philosophy, physics, etc. According to their skills, they would choose one degree or another. But, no matter the degree, I think spelling is very important. At least, writing with proper grammar is a proof of non-illiteracy, in my honest opinion.

And I am not sure the ability to write lengthy pieces with delightful descriptive flourishes is an admirable trait where succinct, to the point passages would suffice - in fact, be more readable. — jgill

Yeah, brief texts could be better and more comprehensible than long ones. Nonetheless, if we want to teach young people critical reading, large texts are also important. Furthermore, I think it is essential to teach them to not read only the surface of every topic. For example, I am not an expert on mathematics, but some paradoxes are interesting, and I want to expand my knowledge of that. Wikipedia would help me; that's true, but I bet there are clear papers around the Internet that could be more complete.

For example, I am not an expert on mathematics, but some paradoxes are interesting, and I want to expand my knowledge of that — javi2541997

Here is a brief note with images on the diagonal paradox, which some on this site argue is not really a paradox. Interestingly, a physicist on this site mentioned it might have relevance in describing or explaining quantum phenomena.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing the note. :up:

First of all, it is quite complex to approach paradoxes. When I tried to comment something on this topic, some users rejected my view because they considered that it wasn't a paradox at all. So, the concept of paradox is blurry to me.

On the other hand, if I am not mistaken, the paradox of your notes is that whereas the figure collapses uniformly, the surface areas of the 3D figures are limitless.
I might haven't understood something because my knowledge of math is very limited—not like the 3D surface areas :grin: —but it is always comforting to try to read papers like yours.

the paradox of your notes is that whereas the figure collapses uniformly, the surface areas of the 3D figures are limitless. — javi2541997

:up:

For example, I want to know some details about Sweden. If I searched on Wikipedia, I would discover basic info such as the capital city, GDP, extension, etc. But if I decide to take a book of Scandinavian studies, my knowledge about Sweden will be deeper, better, and higher in quality. Sadly, it seems that people only want to focus on the surface. — javi2541997

Yes, good knowledge requires perspective out of a larger amount of information from many sides of a topic. We can read short notes on politics and history of a nation, but that doesn't mean we actually understands that nation, the spirit of the people, what they believed or how history played out. Reading detailed and longer stories about people in a nation can give a lot more insight into what that nation is about than a Wikipedia page -- it's like the difference between walking down a tourist street buying commercialized trash with the nation's flag on them, and go into a bar in a less known district to chat with locals.

I think emojis are a good internet tool. I like to use them—you can perceive that I use them a lot on TPF. — javi2541997

I think my lack of using them on this forum makes me look more serious and harsh than I really am :sweat:

they should read texts and do poetry. But for real. Not just to pass exams. — javi2541997

Yes, this is a problem. There's a lot of research done on children learning, but many schools form curriculums and policy out of ideals and personal values rather than following what the science says. Like one basic thing is smaller classes. It's a well proven thing to increase the quality of education for each child, but politicians and schools are extremely bad at adjusting this. Increasing the funding for schools, increasing the salary for teachers and pushing for more teachers will make for smaller classes.

Otherwise we get these shortcut strategies in which everything is studied for exams because that can be scaled up rather than making sure each student get enough help to actually learn grammar.

But this is also on the parents. Shoving an iPad into the hands of kids rather than spending time with them, reading stories to them, engaging in their imagination etc. will only produce consumers who cannot contribute or engage socially or intellectually.

Furthermore, let's be honest. People always valued science over language. It is a terrible mistake, in my opinion. — javi2541997

I would say that it's terrible in the form of language being extremely important in order to understand science. People won't understand science if they don't have enough language skills to communicate it. The why when doing science can sometimes become abstract, otherwise there would only be two types, the ones who don't understand anything in science and those who can only follow protocol.

So language is a basis for everything and understanding it fully and in complex ways enrich all other knowledge.

We—the millennial generation—are guilty, not just education and culture. I would like to know if you were thinking about a private or public educational system, or if this is not relevant at all. — javi2541997

I would put blame on all parents from the mid 80s until now. It's the broader culture that forms the values that dictate how parents take care of their children and what pressure is put on schools.

I don't think private or public education matters so much, even though private education can be pressured more by obnoxious parents. And that's a big problem as well. Parents have been getting more power in controlling schools, putting pressure on schools not to give bad grades to their child. This type of helicopter parenting culture has been rampant over the last decades and it makes the children get less out of the education.

It takes a village to raise a child, as it's said. Parents need to understand that schools are part of nurturing the children and that also goes for abiding to rules and structure of school. Primarily, this is an underrated aspect of what a school is. It's basically a micro-cosmos of society, with citizens, laws and obligations. That structure forms self-disciplin, to function within society. If parents erodes this to push for their children to be treated "special", then those kids will be unfit to function in society.

I think that flows into the discipline of learning as well. If you don't form a basic disciplin, why form a disciplin of using language for communication? Instead, that leads to using language as merely expression, which is what internet-lingo is more than functional communication.

If language is always pure subjective expression rather than communication, it does not need proper grammar or structure, and I think that's a major part in what is happening here.

The more time children spent looking at moving pictures, the less they read. — Vera Mont

Not necessarily, as seen in this study. I don't think TV as a passive medium is much of a problem, it's been around for long. The problem is the incentive to read and the ability to spend time focusing on it. Parents shove iPad's into their children's lap in early ages and keeps doing it whenever the child is bored and restless. But it's this restless and bored state that is where the interest in reading needs to grow. Reading stories to them, spending time with them writing and using text. But the children also needs to be able to handle boredom, and not constantly be put into a passive state.

Meanwhile, teachers had classes of 35 and more students, due to the post war baby boom; they were required to take courses in the new methods in their spare time; they were expected to lead extracurricular activities and supervise lunchrooms, schoolyards, sporting events and dances, and their routine paperwork tripled inside of a decade. When were they supposed to provide extra help for the slower students? — Vera Mont

Yes, this is something that research have showed is one of the biggest problems and also one of the easiest to solve if society took this more serious. As I mentioned to Javi above, smaller classes is a must. All children are different in their timing for certain abilities and just increasing class sizes just makes for generalizing everything and mostly focusing on mass tests for grades rather than spending more time with each child.

If society can't gather around the finer details of educational complexity, then at least put some money into making classes smaller. It's obvious all over educational research.

As the general population's reading and math skills declined, news and public affairs outlets adjusted their vocabulary, the structure of their articles and the level of detail in their reports. Over time, information was gradually reduced to generalities and sensations. Schools, too, had to lower their standards in order to keep promoting students, up and out to make room for the new ones.

Since states are in charge of setting curriculum and administer the main funding of schools, poor states and poor neighbourhoods have poor public schools. Additionally, as the standard of living of low-paid workers stagnates or declines, parents have less time to spend with their children; there is little privacy in cramped homes to do homework, and books are generally absent. — Vera Mont

Yeah, this is a downward spiral. We don't see much of this up here in Scandinavia since there's a great deal of welfare systems mitigating low-income family's problems, but the gradual reduction of language complexity in official use of language is a global phenomena.

We must be careful not to mix together the evolution of language over time with a decline in complexity though. It's easy to look at new ways of using language and think it's getting worse, but language used in news outlets show something else and that's, as you mention, the decline in complexity in its substance. It's more sensational, more descriptive than contemplating. It doesn't put events reported on, in more complex context, instead generalizing. Only in investigative journalisms and carefully crafted essays do we find a better curated use of language, but those parts are rarely read by the casual reader and is more common for the intellectual reader, who's already well-versed in reading and writing.

A major thing to keep in mind is that the decline is broad, over many cultures. It's easier to understand the mechanics in places like the US, in which privatization generally forms understandable reasons for why reading and writing declines, but in nations like those in Scandinavia, we also see these declines in reading and writing, without the same kind of societal problems.

So there's a global cultural reason for why this is happening and it's increasing faster than before, meaning in historical context children did comparably well until the rise of internet and social media.

The primary thing I can see is how language is used outside of school. It both affects the ability to learn more advanced language in school, while that knowledge expands into the private sphere outside of school. They're interlinked for the holistic quality of language in a person.

As the religious factions push for less science and more scripture; conservative local governments and school boards ban or reject more and more books, and forbid the discussion of a range of disapproved topics, bar critical thinking instruction and unrevised history courses, there is a homogenization of thought which doesn't require analysis or comprehension of complex ideas.

A polity that thinks in slogans and jingles is easier to control than one that arms itself with facts. — Vera Mont

While I agree, it doesn't explain the broader decline globally, since not all cultures share the same level of religious conservatism.

The intelligence of a collective group or population can change. This has been discovered by historians. Reading comprehension, depth in understanding, and ability to construct complex written or spoken narratives can be undermined by technology, among other things.
So, then the question becomes, can a reduced intelligence be the cause of a downfall of a culture? Yes! We've seen over histories that cultures/kingdoms had risen, reached their glorious era, then vanished — L'éléphant

One thing I'm usually promoting is that society needs to return to valuing science, expertise, knowledge and wisdom. That we treat knowledge and the knowledgeable as virtuous and something to reach and achieve, something that people look up to. The post-truth ideals going around has much to do with the poorly educated and less intelligent to lose faith in the wise in society. So no one cares to become wise, no one cares about gaining knowledge because there's no status in doing so. And there's no wonder they think like this since the ones running society are usually scammers tricking people into believing they have knowledge when they don't, and the disappointment when these scammers fail people over and over makes people lose trust. This lost trust ends up making collateral damage onto the perception of knowledge and the actually wise.

The people do not have to be intelligent to function as a society, they just need to understand how to spot who's intelligent, knowledgeable and wise from who's a scam artist playing that role.

And if people gain trust in the wise again, then knowledge will gain popularity and be something people want to pursue.

What society as a whole needs is to get rid of the post-truth scam artists eroding the status of knowledge. The media literacy of being able to understand who's who and not fall for scammer narratives is key to healing society's relation to knowledge.

While I agree, it doesn't explain the broader decline globally, since not all cultures share the same level of religious conservatism. — Christoffer

No, but many countries have religious bias of one kind or another. And that's just one factor. Political ideology is a more compelling one. Pretty much the whole world has been trending rightward since the 1980's. The most pervasive influence, however, is the commercial one. Persuading the consumer to buy things, wars, the status quo, attitudes and opinions is good for the top economic layer. And they're global.

No, but many countries have religious bias of one kind or another. And that's just one factor. Political ideology is a more compelling one. Pretty much the whole world has been trending rightward since the 1980's. The most pervasive influence, however, is the commercial one. Persuading the consumer to buy things, wars, the status quo, attitudes and opinions is good for the top economic layer. And they're global. — Vera Mont

The clearest increase from the 1980s is probably the rise of neoliberalism and individualism. The attention to what things that matters to people change with that as they're more focused on self-expression of the ego rather than values and opinions in relation to the world around. The notion of the collective, of being part of something might fuel a need for knowledge in relation to that, but knowledge for the self only extends to what benefits the self, and thus expands over into interests. What interests people today are not big ideas about existence in relation to others and the world around, and instead more about the self and only the self as the end point of any knowledge.

Through that individualistic value, reading isn't interesting if it's not for the benefit of the self. Only that which emotionally aligns will be read, and therefor text that expands knowledge, challenge ideas and norms gets ignored. Reading a lot often relies on being open to new ideas, and if being open like that has diminished culturally, then interest in reading has diminished as well. Maybe the rise of social media has only been a catalyst and fuel onto a fire that was lit in the 80s? Algorithms that push the exact psychological profile of the ego that doesn't care about much else than the self.

The clearest increase from the 1980s is probably the rise of neoliberalism and individualism. — Christoffer

That's slogan 'individualism'. The idea is to foster the illusion of choice, of personal freedom, individual responsibility. What this actually means is cutbacks in social services (Those poor people made bad choices; the price gauging on is healthy competition; trade unions restrict your choice of employment; increased government surveillance is for your own protection; you can buy any of a hundred identical items made by the same three corporations; law-enforcement needs to be beefed up with military weapons and harsh punishment to prevent those shiftless other stealing your stuff.) Meanwhile, news, entertainment and pastimes all grow more and more alike and patriotic, less and less challenging to comprehend.

Maybe the rise of social media has only been a catalyst and fuel onto a fire that was lit in the 80s? — Christoffer

No, it's a tool. Technology at all level has been owned and controlled by the privileged elite. When industry and commerce required mechanically competent workers, they supported trade-schools. When they needed a literate and numerate work-force, they supported public education. When they needed chemists, biologists, technically savvy and financially shrewd minions, they supported highly specialized post-secondary education. If you have to digest and be tested on 400 page books on Business Communication or DNA sequencing, you don't have much time or mental energy for general reading.
So, the clever ones are channeled into being precision instruments, the moderately endowed are made into tools; the surplus serves as examples to keep the productive classes productive and obedient.

What society as a whole needs is to get rid of the post-truth scam artists eroding the status of knowledge. The media literacy of being able to understand who's who and not fall for scammer narratives is key to healing society's relation to knowledge. — Christoffer

Yup. We are in the age of misinformation. When the whole society is focused on number of views or clicks, that's what we get.