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Has anyone else noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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.

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[–] Dfy@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Am I the only one that's scared this isn't from social media / attention span but actually maybe that a long term side effect of COVID could partly explain this? I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory and I've never heard anyone phrase it like I'm doing right now but it seems like this virus changes how we think. I've heard people say for the first time in their life they couldn't control their thoughts, my father couldn't stop having nightmares for multiple nights...

[–] moog@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

it is a symptom of long COVID, but i only think it exacerbated an already existing issue. It is the rise of dumb social media and dopamine addiction if you ask me. But what do i know

[–] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This effect has been observable even before the Corona pandemic hit us. While it can be a factor in individuals, the overall shift in society over the last ~30 years probably stems from us using our brains less for tasks that require continuous effort.

Basically, we only train the sprint and can't do the marathon anymore.

[–] Natanael 1 points 1 year ago

The effects of persistent inflammation in the brain were already known previously, but it became a common symptom first with COVID, so yeah.