[bmitc]

I am fairly certain that that does not explain it away and that reading levels among those who are literate have indeed dropped significantly.

When your primary form of entertainment and learning is long form reading, it isn't a big surprise.

[foldr]

In the case of Shakespeare, it doesn't make sense to look at the reading level of 16th century Londoners because they were watching his plays, not reading them.

[bmitc]

Well that's the problem with these game of telephone discussions. We went from the 18th century to the 19th and then all the way back to the 16th. Note that I didn't comment on Shakespeare specifically.