It started in 2013. If we have to blame technology, social media seems more likely than AI, I guess.

weweersdfsd 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Social media AND smartphones became popular around that time. I think it's the toxic combination that's the worst - easy, low effort dopamine hits that are available everywhere via your phone, whenever you are bored.

	▲	username332211 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		In 2013 social media was still a textual medium, right? There was Vine, but that died pretty quickly, from what I remember. If social media and smartphones are the problem, I would have expected that results for English proficiency would be steady until the advent of TikTok, right?

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pixl97 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

From 2011 to 2013 smartphone adoption in the US went from 35 to 55%, and by 2016 was 75%. While not proof of causation, the correlation is very strong.

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Der_Einzige 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Pfft, it started in 2007. Kids couldn’t deal with the orange box, cod4, halo3, all coming out at once.

	▲	bee_rider 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Actually, it is a good point that this is a lagging indicator.