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.
At work if I ask 2 questions in an email I’m guaranteed 1 or 0 answers.
That’s not just reading comprehension. People are always answering my questions with unapplicable answers.
“Is it on the left or the right?”
“It’s 67, the one with grass in the yard.”
Just answer the damn question rather than providing me other information you decide would be more helpful!
Ok so in defense of dumbasses, we don’t always understand the question. Eg, whose left? In those cases we don’t want to make your clarify the question and drag things out, so we give you what we hope is an unequivocally clear response. It comes from a deep-seeded fear of miscommunication resulting in too many mailboxes with their flags on the wrong side or whatever. We apologize for the pedantry, though. I get that it’s annoying.
When we’re driving typically left means left.
Depends which direction you’re coming from though
Now we’re starting to see another problem that might be at play when people say “I’m not getting answers to my questions”
One key to happiness for me is to start from the assumption that I’ve been unclear.
Not if we’re in the same car.
Maybe because there’s 10 kinds of email replies at your workplace
Hah!
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 started preferring long form media recently. Audiobooks especially. Social media allows anyone to say a single thing that may or may not be legit, but since it’s bite sized information units they don’t need to back it up. Long form media requires a person to back up what they say, and having that barrier of entry filters out those who probably aren’t worth listening to.
Oh yeah. I love audiobooks, podcasts, and video essays.
Me too:) do you have any recommendations off the top of your head? No genre preference, just your favorite book or video essay?
I’m a sci fi and fantasy guy. I don’t think I have favorites, but I can list off some series. The Expanse, The Dark Tower, Dune up to Children of Dune, the series that starts with Ender’s Game, The Foundation series, the Space Odyssey series, Stormlight Archive, the Three Body Problem series, as many books as you want from the Discworld series, The Witcher, Children of Time, etc etc etc
I couldn’t name a single video essay by title. I just listen, I am entertained, and I move on. Anything by Folding Ideas is good. Those count as video essays right?
Anything you want to recommend?
Hell yeah. I just read Guards, Guards! by Pratchett and I’m working through LotR again. Dune is amazing, but I haven’t continued past the original so maybe I’ll read those next.
If you’re into history, I’ve been listening to The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, it focuses on each major historical event from the perspective of the regular individual person rather than focusing on the people who happened to be in power during them, and it’s pretty good so far. I also read Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky, and that was life changing. Those are two pretty political ones, though.
In terms of fiction Id recommend Cormac McCarthy – either The Road or Blood Meridian – The Road is a post apocalyptic story about a father traversing through the ashen environment with his son, while Blood Meridian is a brutal Western set in the 1800s. With both of these, it’s not as much about plot as it is about the poetry of the writing.
I haven’t read a scifi book in a minute, but I haven’t seen a lot of people recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz. It’s three separate-but-connected short post-apocalyptic stories that follow the gradual resurgence of humans after a nuclear event. It’s really subtle in that it doesn’t slam you with like a whole universe and systems like Dune, but it’s expertly written and hits some pretty thought provoking topics. Def underrated.
Those last 2 paragraphs sound right up my alley, thank you very much!
LotR is of course, incredible, and anything Terry Pratchett touches is gold
May I suggest that you don’t get a job in IT?
“I try to do a thing on my computer and I get an error message.”
“What does the message say?”
“I don’t know.”
The story of me helping people with computers.
To be fair, that’s learned helplessness.
How many times have you said ‘yes yes, just click through that, jeeze’?
There is so damn much horrible shitty UX out there; 90% of the time users are just trained out of using common sense, and you can’t blame them for it.
That other 10% though, goddamn. I swear if you moved their doorknob an inch to the left they’d starve to death in their home.
Also one my favourites:
„Nothing works, and this annoying message keeps popping up. I keep closing it, but it just comes back every time. Can you help me?“
Them: “All the PCs are broken”
Me: “ok, cam you see any lights on the monitors or on the front of the pcs”
Them: “i dont know”
Me: “ok I’ll come have a look”
walks down
Me: “Ok show me one of the broken ones”
Them: “ok well its actually just this one”
Me: dont get mad, they are just an idiot
Me: turns on screen
Them: “how did you do that?”
Me AAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGG “magic 😀” AAAAAAARRRRRHHHHHGGG
The amount of people who work on a computer every day and still don’t know the absolute basics is astounding.
I fully understand that someone who never used a PC doesn’t know their way around one, that’s absolutely fair, of course. But if they’ve used one for years because of their job, and are still not able to work out where that one file is…
That’s just inexcusable.Great job security for IT and tech support though.
I once had six monitors shipped to us from onsite, complaining they were all dead.
Each one, just twiddle the brightness knob right on the front (yes this was the 90s, CRTs with analogue knobs…) and they were absolutely fine.
More like my computer doesn’t work. Error message at least implies the computer booted up.
The process of trying to get someone to explain their problem is so painful.
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(Kent Brockman voice) JUST TAKE A SCREENSHOT, PEOPLE!!
Aside from reading comprehension, it seems as though people absolutely lack the ability to problem solve. Head scratching is as far as many will go. I can’t count how many times I’ve found inefficient, tedious, or straight up broken systems or out of date info in my office and when I ask people if they’ve ever contacted IT about it or tried to figure it out they just say “Eh, nah, I just leave it and it works itself out.” No. My guy, you’re just doing it wrong/taking an extra 15 minutes to do everything you’re doing because of the workarounds.
I feel this.
What is the actual point of publishing knowledge bases and documentation if nobody reads them?
Preach
Or customer service for that matter.
I help companies sell products on Amazon.
One sold protein powder. Product title says “25g of protein”. First bullet point says “25g of protein per serving”. Main image of the product clearly shows “25g protein” on the label. Second image makes it more clear with “25 Grams of Protein Per Serving” in big bold letters. The A+ content (images in product description) repeat this information in big bold letters as well. Both the image gallery and the A+ content showed a picture of the supplement facts panel. The top rated review for the product called out that they liked the 25g of protein per serving.
Customer messages me, “How much protein per serving? Doesn’t say anywhere on the listing.”
Rage. Instant, immediate, and intense rage.
My time in retail and working at a liquor store have shown me that a significant portion of the general population are just straight up illiterate, mostly illiterate, or functionally illiterate. I had to stop allowing myself to get upset when customers would ask dumb questions for the sake of my own sanity.
Yep. I’ve noticed this in maybe the last 3-4 years. I’ve actually wondered if i’ve started getting dyslexia.
I think realistically it’s more to do with the way I use the internet. I scan articles rather than read them unless it’s something i’m really interested in. Google search results, half of them tend to be bullshit so i’ve gotten good at scanning them at insane speed.
Yeah, I literally began typing this response before finishing your post.
…
It’s like with increased information we’ve learned to scan for relevance a lot better, but at the expense of overall comprehension.
Like it gets us by, and gets us through the excess in time.
But, when emotions fly? It’s getting volatile.
Massively! I used to read loads of books now I struggle to get through them at all.
I find it easier to listen to a podcast and scan the internet barely taking any information in from either. I have to really concentrate to do either now. I am working at it. Treating reading articles/podcasts as more of a hobby where I try dedicate some time to it where that’s my only focus.
It’s measurable.
In my country we have a central test for kids at various age, and reading comprehension is also measured. Every age group is doing worse and worse every time.
It’s mind blowing to me, as a kis I didn’t understand the point of the test, like you read an A4 page or two and answer questions about the text, that is literally in the text right there, it felt pointless. Well as it turns out it’s not.
We are literally getting worse and worse understanding what we read. The future is scary.
People have been speaking out a long time about the shit education system we use in most countries (of the West at least), and pretty much nothing has been done, it’s still the same assembly line “education” that pumps out kids that are good at memorizing and solving problems without knowing what they are actually solving.
Social media has also had a terrible effect for people’s attention spans and analytical capabilities, and no meaningful restrictions have been put in place.
People have stopped reading books and long/difficult content, because there are much easier alternatives nowadays that their brain naturally goes for due to instant gratification. Also because of having less time and energy to devote after working and being stressed out for the most of the day.
The future is scary indeed, but it’s important to note that we led ourselves here by constantly shoving our problems under the rug.
Lol I remember taking a state mandated reading comprehension test. The text was literally directions on how to assemble a grill.
I am a documentation writer at my day job. I spend an obscene amount of time writing and rewriting support materials for our software to make sure the instructions are as clean as possible. The end users of the software are busy doctors and nurses so I get why they dont have time to read and just want quick answers from our support team. I get that.
What I dont forgive is how many times the support team will complain to me that a scenario or a feature isnt in the documentation, despite me bolding, bullet listing, and highlighting THE EXACT THING THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT. I usually relink it to them and screenshot the relevant section.
People. Do. Not. Read.
THIS. I literally got called into an HR meeting because one of our clients threw a giant fit claiming a large, world ending, apocalyptic problem, because of an issue that I already reported on which is literally above his hissy fit message sent on a Sunday morning and he got mad because I replied on Monday at 9 AM literally sending him the screenshot of me reporting the problem to him.
I recently got into a long, really dumb argument. I used the phrase “lesser of two evils” and what seemed like fifty people (actually two or three) seemed to think that meant I approved of, strenuously endorsed, and would defend the actions of the “lesser evil.”
To me, this seemed like a basic misunderstanding of what the phrase meant, so I defined it. Their response to my definition was to say the same sort of thing they’d already said while claiming to totally know what “lesser of two evils” meant.
I lost my cool, and explained what the phrase meant again. One of the folks explained themselves calmly while the others seemed to think I was a congenital idiot because I kept repeating myself.
I don’t want this to get any longer, so I’ll just say that we were talking past each other. Nobody (well, except fr the one guy who stopped to explain what he meant) was really comprehending what the other person said. So everyone was a dumbass, basically. Story of my life, really.
At least, I think that’s what happened. Watch the asshole who called me a liar and an idiot show up here to not explain how I’m a liar and an idiot again.
I don’t think it’s a reading comprehension problem, it’s some sort of cultural problem. These people are reading what we are typing, but that’s not what they want to talk about. So they will take anything, even tangentially related and disprove a component of it so they can reframe the conversation back to what they wanted to argue about.
I actually find myself doing similar things. Essentially I will write out a long winded comment, then realize that the person I am replying to has nothing to do with what I wanted to say. Instead I was paraphrasing all of the comments, coming up with a point I wanted to make and then ramming it round peg square hole style into someone else’s comment tree. I have been deleting a lot of comments before even hitting the post button in the last 6 months or so since I realized I was doing it.
TLDR: A lot of people online are not arguing in good faith.
Lol, Lemmy is still small enough that I know the thread you are talking about. It was a political discussion, yeh?
If I remember right most of the people who argued with you were from hexbear, which tracks lol.
Yeah, that’s the one. I figured I’m small potatoes so no one’s gonna bother looking it up. It never even occurred to me that someone might have already seen it lol.
As an uninvolved party, after reading the thread, I understand that you feel frustrated and misunderstood. But I’m sorry to say that I feel like the failure of reading comprehension was on your part more than theirs.
It seems like the majority of people who responded to you argued that there are not two evils, but two parts to the same whole evil.
No one, that I saw, claimed you were saying that the Democrats were not evil. But the disagreement was that you see the Republicans and Democrats as two evils, while your opponents see them as one.
Whether or not you agree, that seems like a logically coherent belief to hold.
As an uninvolved party…
Sigh. Not uninvolved anymore I guess.
When one guy stopped calling me names and arguing against points I wasn’t trying to make, I backed down and listened and then acknowledged that he had a point.
I’m not rehashing the argument again. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go into my post history and throw things back in my face. I don’t know what the etiquette is, but it seems rude.
My new job has 18 people in a training class where we are asked to read the content out loud. The amount of grown ass adults that will literally make up different words blows my mind.
Prior covid infection has a well documented negative impact on the brain. I.e brain fog. Fundamentally covid causes vascular damage (blood vessels are harmed) and the brain is highly dependant on blood vessel health.
Can I see the documentation? Couldn’t find it and am curious :)
Pro tip: google “COVID brain fog”
Source?
Some of it’s the food too. Folks be hoofing gluten and corn syrup all day long. I saw a homeless guy in the park just sitting there eating a block of pudding mix.
You’re on Internet. Many people are not native English speaker.
Secondly, people are saying this kind of shit litteraly since anciant Greece. You’re late to the party. They complained about it in each and every place of the western world at every time we have written records to read that shit. It’s seriously amazing how this trope is one of the most consistent of the history of mankind. And it doesn’t depend on the language obviously.
Iirc, even the Greeks bemoaned the written word because it harmed physical memory and made out brains weak because we could just consult tablets lazily instead of memorizing everything.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept13/2013/09/29/socrates-writing-vs-memory/
Socrate said that apparently. Fortunately they weren’t all idiots so we now know that they would also say stupid things.
I don’t understand, what are you trying to say? :(
One of my tasks at work is creating content - blogs, social media posts, internal communication emails, etc. We are instructed to write everything at a 5th-grade level because that’s where the average American reads. Not the lowest-level American, the average.
I also get to do customer support for people who would not have to contact me if they had actually read the information I wrote for them.
I’m a nurse and we were taught to educate patients at the fifth grade level as well. Believe it or not, the sex ed level is even lower! The average American seems to struggle with such topics as “it’s bad to touch or be touched when the person being touched doesn’t like it” and “don’t put random household objects in your butthole.”
johnconnor.gif: “We’re not gonna make it, are we? Humanity I mean.”
I don’t know if it’s at a 5th grade level, but the XKCD comic has an editor that flags words that are not in the top 500 most used words. The author used it in a few comics to explain complicated things in “plain English”.
I’d say that would be useful, but using it would be depressing so it sounds like a double-edged sword.
I disagree, I think Alaska is fairly erogenous
OP, here’s another one! This one’s also pointing out incorrect facts about Arkansas!
Not only reading comprehension but also media literacy and scientific literacy. Too many people misunderstand simple messages in media. Homelander from The Boys come in mind.
Most recently the complete lack of understanding of a wet bulb temperature comes to mind. In articles discussing this, people completely left out the “wet bulb” part, which they didn’t understand, and went on to post comments about “65 DEGREES IS NOTHING, IT REGULARLY GETS OVER 90 WHERE I LIVE!!!”. The audacity of some folks. It took me 5 seconds to Google wet bulb temperature to not look like a dumbass saying something like that with my whole chest lol
Props to you for grasping the concept of wet bulb temperature and getting why it’s always lower or equal to the dry bulb temperature. It’s not exactly obvious why that’s the case.
Thanks! It’s just wild to me that people don’t have the curiosity to at least search up something they don’t understand first. Also lol at me not seeing my whole mess of cellphone typos before posting, haha
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He’s a cautionary tale, right? (Only seen bits and pieces of the show)
