To think we’re getting dumber?

Hear hear!!!

@Dontlletmedownbruce going to the post office or bank is more stressful than it used to be now. Less staff and longer queues. Do I want to drag my kids to stand in a 45 minute queue in a boiling post office? Not really, it’s bad enough standing there on my own.

Yes @MoistVonL I see this too. I'm not in that field for long but my colleagues talk about this all the time. Apparently their physical skills have deteriorated massively too, climbing kicking a ball, catching etc is behind where it used to be. They also seem to be sheltered in a bubble made for children and with little exposure to the real world. The 5 yr olds I work with are starting school in September and half of them think we pay in dollars. None of them know their address, most don't know their parents real names or occupations. More disturbingly, I realised last week many don't know their own name. Seriously how do you not know your name? I think parents used to make phone calls they would overhear but no longer do. Or they don't bring them along to normal appointments. Years ago a kid was brought to the bank or post office or shop regularly, some of these kids never go anywhere but soft play or playgrounds and don't interact in the adult world at all

I write novels, and therefore I get Amazon reviews. Some of these are so poorly worded that I can't actually tell what they thought of the book, and some reveal that the reader probably ought to have stuck at 'Janet and John', as they don't seem to be able to grasp any complexity beyond 'man and woman meet, have conversation.'

And do not get me started on the ones that say 'some of the words were too difficult - I don't want to read a book where i have to consult a dictionary every paragraph'. (I don't not use words in my books that I don't use in ordinary conversation).

it is an odden, especially when its already third hand news etc

What level is acceptable and what do you propose we do about the 'unacceptable' ones?

I’m on the fence on this one

😂😂😂

You are quite right and have a metaphorical hug. I quite like Battenburg.

I am worried about the generation of children growing up now. I accept that it’s anecdotal, but my friends who work in early years tell me the standard of language skills of the children has plummeted.

Many parents are on their phones rather than talking to their babies and young children, toddlers are watching screens, and some are starting preschool barely verbal.

So from that perspective, yes, I think we are risking becoming a lot less intelligent. Without strong language skills, so many other things will be out of reach.

We are the same intelligence but in the olden days we could only read the opinions professionally written in newspapers or books, or carefully chosen letters to the editor.
The internet has shone an unflattering light on the human race.

Yes, we indeed are, and I see numerous examples of it daily.

Spelling is one such area. If I see liaise spelled as ‘lease’ at work one more time I swear I’ll implode! I work in education and I received an email on Friday from one of our associates regarding a safeguarding matter relating to a young person and I wish I could say I was joking when I tell you I had to read it 3 times to try and make sense of it. It was littered with spelling mistakes (including the example as above), and I think punctuation. and grammar were completely lost on her. I was supposed to be able to quote from the aforementioned email but it was impossible.

I fully appreciate that people have needs (and don’t know if she has any), but if you are working in the type of role she is, then it is essential that you can communicate with clarity. She is white and English, and this is not the first email of this type of ‘quality’ from her.

I think that because there's so much anger everywhere about just about every single topic under the sun, many posters have developed a 'short-fuse' mode. It's not just rage-baiting, it's rage full stop. That plays a massive role.

I know you are not asking me but no I’m far more intelligent than my parents. But they didn’t read, weren’t curious about things. The irony being my dad was always saying if I made a mistake, as children do -are you stoopid? Deliberately misspelling that as that’s how he pronounced it.

is it not also that we are seeing peoples spelling and grammar or lack of more as we use social media. People are having to write things down and that exposes it.

accents as well, people don’t put on accents, my mum had a telephone voice which is similar to the voices you hear in people being interviewed years ago that other posters have alluded to. Now we hear lots of different accents so aren’t as ashamed by ours and don’t try to flatten them out perhaps? If everyone you heard on tv sounded like the queen (the same voice as the woman in the cafe in Brief Encounter) then you’d emulate that.

There's nothing 'similar' to a mammogram, though. I myself can manage fine with a male health care provider at the other end of me, but couldn't bear for a man to have his arm around me, so close I could feel his breath and smell his toothpaste. This is a point many other women brought up.

I had it last at a funeral. It was unexpected but very joyful. Liverpudlian catholic funeral so wonder if that’s just a thing.

YANBU
The art of debate has been completely lost. It’s often pointless engaging with people.

I know for me at least that my reading comprehension when reading from screens is far far lower. I read faster, skimming, get more easily distracted, and get tired when its a long chunk of text. Have none of these issues when reading print so its definitely related to the screen.

I do also think I am becoming less intelligent, I think that's down to screens affecting my concentration and becoming more reliant on things like autocorrect and calculators.

I’m often astounded by people’s lack of comprehension on here.
You’ll see someone reply to a post and they’ve spectacularly missed the point of it.

Or let non-experts in the media tell them. My bloke was watching the news yesterday, but instead of watching the actual news, he was watching a news clip with a youtuber in the corner commentating on the news, telling him how to interpret what the news is saying. I commented on this and he said this is how everyone gets their news these days!

There is research that shows that we read differently in digital than in hard copy print. Whilst we closely read hard copy we are tempted to skim read, or even scan, digital- whilst I say ‘tempted’ I’m not sure how much actual control we always have. Anyway, we therefore absorb much less, just reading for the gist, or picking out the important words (to us). Percentages of words read are something like 80% hard copy, 40% skim and 30% scan - these are probably not accurate (my memory!) but give an idea of how much we take in.
I learned of this many years ago, and it stuck with me, but I also wondered whether it would change as we used digital more and more, from a younger and younger age - perhaps not though, or perhaps not yet, or perhaps we will learn to communicate differently over time.
Also my go to when objecting to PowerPoint reading presentations was a suggestion apparently made about the Challenger catastrophe- the problem that caused it was right there mentioned in a PP presentation, but overlooked as it was a PP presentation- hopefully this was more of an exaggeration, but having delivered (not read) PP presentations and being told I never mentioned something then I do think there’s a basis of possibility in this idea.
I recognise I’ve written too much - very bad habit I avoid at work now having learned only first 2 lines are ever read! - but I’m older and find it harder to adjust!

Why is everyone writing Batternburg? Ironically mis-spelling the joke of the thread.

I studied German and whilst I've forgotten much of it, spelling Battenberg correctly is now my only skill, and I'm going to cling to it. I'm currently looking for a WFH position related to Battenberg.

Battenberg is the original form of the Royal Family's name Mountbatten. Berg is German for mountain. Anyone you meet with Berg in their name is just Something-Mountain.

In a similar vein, anyone with "baum" in their name, like Tannenbaum, is Something-Tree.

Something to bear in mind is that some people will have kids around in the background while reading posts. If your reading comprehension stays the same whilst being badgered for snacks, asked for Minecraft tips or having a soft toy shoved in your face I take my hat off to you. Or they may have insomnia and be half asleep like me right now.

I don't agree. I worked with many younger people over the years and I was constantly amazed at the very basic knowledge they were lacking in - and many of these people had uni degrees. Things my generation, and my DH's (he was younger than me) grew up learning they simply didn't know. exDH still comments on this. Also I really think some people don't understand that text abbreviation is not actually the correct way to write. So many don't seem to know what is happening in other parts of the world at any given time, I find it quite scary. Of course this isn't a blanket thing, but I can't help but think that overall OP is right.

However, you are right in one respect - they should be providing Battenburg!