Hi, I learned to read quite early, got into school (pre-kinder) already reading, and my perception of this topic, naturally, is different from people who seem to have generic opinions because they can't even notice how bad they read (or write). And no, English is not my first language.
Years ago I began noticing things getting worse and said "people don't read anymore" on different circles, and I insisted "I see people not understanding what they read", but I was labeled as alarmist, now I'm having people telling me "yeah, you were right". Things are getting worse.
Writing on my websites (and on business websites, magazines, etc.), and getting feedback from readers literally scared me, because such feedback allowed me to understand how bad things were, and things looked like sketches from the parody newspaper The Onion, I mean, you could write "the monkey fell to the ground after falling sleep", and you could receive emails and questions like "who shot the monkey?", shot? nobody even mentioned a single line about shooting a monkey!, people fail to read so bad, they see things that aren't there, come to wrong conclusions, or say you wrote unrealistic events... and when you try to prove it, they can even say you modified it, yeah, because they read so bad, they stick to whatever they understood first instead of accepting they got the wrong interpretation.
Soon, VERY SOON, at a company, I learned I had to write in a way that became sort of foolproof, just as a mean to reduce misunderstandings.
- I recently posted a bit on how some big websites (with large amounts of daily traffic) that I built for a company no longer exist. Well, it's worse, I started digging, and here I combine diff sources of information.
- I worked at 2 major media companies. Only one exist, one went bankrupt. The old newspapers used to own their own buildings, imagine that.
- We had (nationwide) several newspapers, only 3 survive, without counting the "official newspaper", this one exist due to legislation purposes, and the largest newspaper (where I had a job) it's a minimal version of what it used to be.
- This huge company had a bunch of magazines and special editions, most of them had a web version. All of that is gone, except one historic magazine that is now, often called a joke because it's downsized, and made fun of because they post things they find on the web, it's no longer magazine-research, or editorial based.
But it's worse than just saying "this doesn't exist anymore". The major company had a huge budget for future reader investing, I know it because I worked at this company. Part of this budget went to products that became profitable and produced money, while a huge part went to editorial products that were not profitable, like kids magazines and activities. I saw these departments shrink and vanish, same for their products. The founders were convinced the readers needed investment, and being a read-by-nature product, they should invest. Well, I guess it didn't work, or it only worked for a while because all of that is gone. Now I know huge departments no longer exist, and the largest magazine is gone, everything died several years ago, one by one.
Yes, you could say "oh, but you are confusing a company transformation with -people don't read anymore-", but no, I'm not confusing the indicators. My wife has a job at one of the largest universities in the country (and region, it's not just at one country level, but region level), and they are alarmed.
As university, they are becoming aware that:
- Most students can't read
- Many students fail the initial tests
- The university lowered the difficulty of the tests, and still they fail
- Students complain (in pain) when facing more than one page
- Some teachers left, tired of the mediocrity and complaining about students being stupid
- The cases of "draw an apple" and ending with a banana are increasing (students don't understand instructions)
- The amount of "I have ADHD, ADKW, BDDWW, AJSJ" are increasing, I mean, you don't even know what they are saying
- Last week I was informed the numbers go up regarding students that can't write and demand the exams to be made using drawings, I'm not kidding
Things are getting so out of hand, my wife says at office level they are dealing with new workers (with several academic certifications) that CAN'T READ, they don't understand instructions and can't follow procedures.
My wife has a direct work relationship with a person in charge (position of power), who has attention issues, so, this guy makes every possible effort to help those who can't understand or read, causing all sort of problems. You cold say he is helping his kind, and people can't explain how he got there.
Sorry, it's a long post, but it's real, lots of people are loosing the ability to read and understand, and some have been unable of actually learning.
