An anecdote, with no intention of singling out: I just saw a Lemmy comment than article was “a billion words” and probably AI written, implying it was too long to read.
It was 1500 words. And just in a journalistic, objective writing style, with no fluff.
I have older relatives who have stopped reading papers in lieu of YT Shorts. Another had a stint with AI psychosis, and so did a dev I used to follow. I’ve seen (likely) younger folks here on Lemmy that didn’t even understand the concept of a non-algorithmic feed, or the distinction between opinion pieces and news.
…Yeah. Engagement optimization has done incredible damage .
Attention spans are short now.
I don’t know what to do about it, either, as people have shown they will always vote for the instant gratification of it.
It’s a struggle for me, now. I can’t imagine being 14 right now.
well i’m not seeing the problem. the reason why schools have no standards (as explained in the article) today is because we expect everyone to go to school. iirc there’s an OECD quota that 50% of young people need to get a college degree. … you know what that means? effectively you’re turning school into an extended kindergarden. … the problem isn’t the students but what we expect of masses of young people. ironically, if we’d demand less schooling, we’d get more of it because the standards could be raised again.
In fairness, media consolidation, rampant native advertising, and deluges of “infotainment” have made this distinction increasingly blurry.
I don’t know what to do about it, either, as people have shown they will always vote for the instant gratification of it
A lot of the information is pure junk, consumed entirely for recreation. What’s to be done with people who watch the equivalent of telanovellas labeled as Breaking News?
Even when information is ostensibly useful, there’s the endless debate of what to do with it.
I see this Shepherd’s Tone coverage of education and intelligence, as though highly educated and deeply curious people had some sort of profound influence over the world twenty years ago that we’ve lost today.
If anything, the endless “everyone is getting stupider (except you, sweet beautiful reader)” seems to play directly into the narrative that democracy doesn’t work and submission to authority is the logical choice.
It’s everywhere.
An anecdote, with no intention of singling out: I just saw a Lemmy comment than article was “a billion words” and probably AI written, implying it was too long to read.
It was 1500 words. And just in a journalistic, objective writing style, with no fluff.
I have older relatives who have stopped reading papers in lieu of YT Shorts. Another had a stint with AI psychosis, and so did a dev I used to follow. I’ve seen (likely) younger folks here on Lemmy that didn’t even understand the concept of a non-algorithmic feed, or the distinction between opinion pieces and news.
…Yeah. Engagement optimization has done incredible damage .
Attention spans are short now.
I don’t know what to do about it, either, as people have shown they will always vote for the instant gratification of it.
It’s a struggle for me, now. I can’t imagine being 14 right now.
well i’m not seeing the problem. the reason why schools have no standards (as explained in the article) today is because we expect everyone to go to school. iirc there’s an OECD quota that 50% of young people need to get a college degree. … you know what that means? effectively you’re turning school into an extended kindergarden. … the problem isn’t the students but what we expect of masses of young people. ironically, if we’d demand less schooling, we’d get more of it because the standards could be raised again.
Stopped reading here. TL;DR
tap for good fortune!
Am I doing this right?
In fairness, media consolidation, rampant native advertising, and deluges of “infotainment” have made this distinction increasingly blurry.
A lot of the information is pure junk, consumed entirely for recreation. What’s to be done with people who watch the equivalent of telanovellas labeled as Breaking News?
Even when information is ostensibly useful, there’s the endless debate of what to do with it.
I see this Shepherd’s Tone coverage of education and intelligence, as though highly educated and deeply curious people had some sort of profound influence over the world twenty years ago that we’ve lost today.
If anything, the endless “everyone is getting stupider (except you, sweet beautiful reader)” seems to play directly into the narrative that democracy doesn’t work and submission to authority is the logical choice.