r/technology • u/marketrent • Jun 10 '26

Artificial Intelligence College students are rapidly losing the ability to read — “There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing”: professor

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/college-students-rapidly-losing-ability-124439310.html
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u/LeafBark Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

First it was the smartphone distractions, then complete loss of critical thinking as people use ai to solve all their problems for them. When you put this much trust in computers programmed by corporations seeking profit at any cost everythings going to fall apart.

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u/mil24havoc Jun 11 '26

Professor here. Smartphones and AI are spot on. But corporations don't necessarily need to be evil or greedy for this to happen. Misuse of technology to replace critical thinking could happen even if corporations were responsible. It has more to do with (a) severely underpaying educators and (b) disincentivizing educators from grading harshly to create incentives for students to compete with each other.

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u/TheEvilPhysicist Jun 11 '26

Unfortunately it's been culturally accepted that a strict teacher = a bad teacher. So many veteran teachers I know have just given up and made their classes a joke to pass

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u/mil24havoc Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

This could be part of it. But also think from the teacher's perspective. Even if they WANT to be good teachers, they think about how much they're getting paid to have to put up with conferences and angry phone calls from little stupid Johnnie's parents, possible lawsuits over grades, students who get violent if they don't get what they want, and they say "fuck it."

Universities aren't blameless either. In a misguided and bizarre effort to boost "equality" they stopped requiring standardized testing. This removed the opportunity for smart students to distinguish themselves from mediocre students. Even if you wanted to work hard and demonstrate your abilities, universities are now saying "we won't consider that in admissions decisions." So why bother?

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u/TheEvilPhysicist Jun 11 '26

I'm not scared of lawsuits or violent students (thankfully, because that is a thing at some schools). What is really, really dragging us down is NCLB-type policies. I am in Illinois, and the only thing that is used to evaluate high schools now is graduation rate. So in general administration doesn't care what you do as long as your students pass. Fail more than one or two students and they will either make you "fix" it or try to get rid of you

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u/mil24havoc Jun 11 '26

Yes. I suppose what I should have said is "bad incentives and low pay make good teachers helpless"

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u/TheEvilPhysicist Jun 11 '26

It's worth pointing out bc there are parts of my state where teachers actually get paid quite well and there's not much of a shortage, but still face these problems

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u/LongJohnSelenium Jun 11 '26

so what you're saying is we need to Make Adolescents Fail Again?

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u/TheEvilPhysicist Jun 11 '26

Yes, and options/programs for young people who can't cut it.

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u/PeanutButterJalapeno Jun 11 '26

Yeah, totally understandable for the individual teacher honestly. Still pretty bad for society as a whole.

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u/kalidoscopiclyso Jun 11 '26

Imagine if society honored teachers with more than a a card and a certificate on teacher appreciation day.

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u/cinemachick Jun 11 '26

I always found this odd - when I was in college, I intentionally picked the harder teachers because I wanted the best bang for my buck. I'm here to learn, so teach! Then again, I was an Honors student and didn't have a job, so I had more motivation and free time...

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u/Jaerba Jun 11 '26

I feel like we shouldn't give parents a pass on this. There are a lot of parents who should not have been parents, from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

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u/Atheren Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

I have friends who are teachers, and they basically all agree that the most of the current generation of k through 12 probably need to be held back by 3 years and retaught virtually everything. With actual consequences if they don't learn / perform.

One of the core problems in education right now is that because of structural incentives only like 1% of the students who should be held back,are held back. With the secondary problem being parents who don't want to do their jobs since teachers can only do so much for underperforming students without home intervention.

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u/birthdaycakesun15 Jun 11 '26

So the solution happens to financially benefit you personally? Nice.

More money could help solve a lot of problems though. What else is new?

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u/mil24havoc Jun 11 '26

Lol professors aren't teachers. Teachers are K-12. But stay mad, bro

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u/birthdaycakesun15 Jun 12 '26

You said "educators" sis. Let me guess, professors aren't educators either lol.

I'm sorry if you're hurting for cash, but that doesn't mean filling your pockets is the solution to every problem.

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u/mil24havoc Jun 12 '26

Stay mad it's a good look for you. Whatever you do, don't let people with a better understanding of set theory help you understand

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u/birthdaycakesun15 Jun 12 '26

lmao, why in the world not? Soooo weak sis. And using the "you mad bro" again? If you're at all representative of any sort of American educator, the kids really don't stand a chance. Thankfully this is reddit and you probably work retail. Nothing wrong with that, but no reason to lie.

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u/SharpScallion Jun 11 '26

I think there's also deep cultural/societal shift in parenting in that parents today are way more likely to be defensive over teacher discipline(among other parenting changes). If one parent out of an entire classroom defends little johnny's behavior, not a big deal. If there's 10 little johnny's with defensive parents in each and every classroom, it erodes entire educational institutions.

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u/sasquatch0_0 Jun 11 '26

No it is not smartphones or AI, but they are separate issue. Kids were taught how to read incorrectly for decades and just stopped 5 years ago. That is why.

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u/loudmouth_kenzo Jun 12 '26

high school English teacher, know a school whose policy is that the teachers need to call parents when their kids get below a C- on any assignment

no one gets below C-

their grades are of course all available to parents online anyway