| I'm not sure why this comment is grey'd out 8-/ I totally agree with it, and upvoted it. One thing I would add: TV was certainly a major contributor to loss of reality for many people, but the internet was far far worse. Especially with the advent of the mobile, always networked, hand-held computer. The interactive nature of the internet vs TV, and especially the constant availability of a hand-held mobile computer vs a fixed location TV. Data also supports your statement that this phenomenon predates the plague (covid), and measurable educational decline started around 2013. Due to this I've started saying, and this may be a little extreme, but I think still correct: Apple caused the collapse of US educational outcomes, with the release of the iPhone. Goggle, seeing what a giant increase this was yielding in the zombie horde of consumers, jumped on board to participate a few years later. M$, to prevent the only corporate offering that could empower the user's ability to control the means of computation, bought the only well funded linux phone project, and promptly shut it down. Now, 1 short decade later, we see the consequences of the prescient foresight of these major market monopolies: generations of children, some in their 30s and 40s, suffering constant neurotic mental health disorders, mostly centered around their "phones". To come back to my first line above, I'm sure this comment will receive even more downvotes because, mostly people don't want to face reality. |