Reminds me of flood of positive comments on a video someone in my area posted of their dog "playing" with a deer. The deer was trying to kill the dog.
Test score increases have been continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to the present. For example, a study published in the year 2009 found that British children's average scores on the Raven's Progressive Matrices test rose by 14 IQ points from 1942 to 2008.
Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.
I think this is a red herring. It used to be harder to access the internet, and it selected for a certain type of person. Today, in the era of the smart phone, virtually everyone in wealthy nations is on the internet. Most notably, that includes vast numbers of children.
I bet if you looked poorer countries where few people have internet-connected devices, the quality of discourse is much higher. In particular, there are likely few children participating (and the ones who do likely have unusually proactive and involved parents).
I don't believe that for a second, but what I do believe is that 'the masses' have never been so re-broadcast, nor had such a large loud-speaker.
edit: if you’ve spent any time in them in the last few years you’d see the clear degradation. people can barely speak coherently.
And with that bit of self-realization, I think it's time to sign off for a bit.
Keep in mind that the number of children on the internet is higher than it has ever been, and children typically also have more free time to comment than adults have.
But on the other hand, you wouldn't have been able to broadcast the holes in your knowledge as far, either. And everyone has them - the holes in their knowledge. One of yours seems to be reading communication. If most folks can barely speak coherently - to you - I'd wager that you just aren't putting in the work to better understand colloquial speech.
I have mixed feelings. Being exposed to actual violence doesn't seem to make people better, IME. But being so detached from it doesn't seem healthy either.