Turn off the internet!
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As you point out yourself... why are you on CP then...? Anyway, yes, you are right to an extent, but the internet has done good things that we couldn't have achieved otherwise too, you know? Twitter and Facebook saved lives in the big earthquake in Japan in 2011. Children with rare incurable heart disease have been able to receive life saving transplant thanks to donations collected over the internet from people who wouldn't have known about their plight otherwise. Personally, online dictionaries have helped my work immensely. I couldn't rely on an old paper dictionary because half the terminology I use won't be in there. And what's wrong with being able to look things up on the fly anyway? My university tutor used to say that it's not necessary to know everything; what's important is that you know where to look them up. People used to be happier because they used to talk more, eh? Well, now with the internet giving me endless amounts of information, I have more to talk about and more people to talk to. I miss my friend from primary school whom I lost touch with; snail mail was too much of a hassle when you just wanted to say and the only thing you could say was "Hi" (being a complicated teenager). If Facebook had been around then, I bet I still have contact with her. The internet makes dumb people dumber and clever people cleverer.:cool:
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Right on Paulowniak. These people are talking poisonous rubbish because they fear for their status when almost anybody can know what they know with a few clicks of a button.
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Rob Philpott wrote:
In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it.
That's the Google effect.
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I don't know if I can agree with you. Instead of having to waste hours and hours or never being able to find out how to do cetain things because of lack of resources, we now have all the resources a brain can eat up and more. No longer do we have to spend useless time and energy on arithmetic calculations because of the calculator... We can rather spend it on learning something else. I don't think that we are becoming more stupid. With all the information and resources at our finger tips I'd say we're becoming more intelligent. If you take a intelligent person from the past with his limitations of being in the past (no google/no internet) and you take a average intelligence person from the present (google and internet) and you give them exactly the same question on whatever topic. I guarantee you that the person with a average intelligence and google as his resource supplier will give a more accurate answer than the intelligent person.
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." << please vote!! >>
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Too often today people are trying to dictate to others. Why not just do what you think is right and let others make that choice for themselves? It's simple to believe that our own choices are the best, but it's outrageous to think they're best for everyone. As the song says, "Everybody wants to rule the world".
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I had no idea what the word "tumid" meant...so I googled it. Sorry!
Rob Philpott wrote:
I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier?
Well, maybe white straight men were, the rest probably not so much :) On a serious note, I don't think that the Internet has dumbed people down so much as exposed them for the morons they always were. Back in the day you had to be an accomplished writer to spew your thoughts to the world, now any idiot who can make it through a CAPTCHA validation can do the same. Literacy optional. Back in the '90s I thought that the Web was the best thing ever, information would be free and knowledge would explode. Little did I know that 99.9% of the information explosion would consist of BS shrapnel. However, I do enjoy the irony in the fact that "social" media is dominated by antisocial narcissists. EDIT: I forgot to mention the best thing about the Internet: Web programmers like me have jobs.
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Right on Paulowniak. These people are talking poisonous rubbish because they fear for their status when almost anybody can know what they know with a few clicks of a button.
Knowledge is easy, understanding is the tricky bit :) Otto: Apes don't read philosophy. Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it!
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Knowledge is easy, understanding is the tricky bit :) Otto: Apes don't read philosophy. Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it!
Nice quote.
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Obliged XKCD comic[^] Without the internet certainly I would be able to do my job, but it will take longer and i'll be reinventing the wheel very often, so for me it's a blessing, of course there are a few buts, but overall I think the positive parts win.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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The internet isn't much different than a huge (and incredibly wellmaintained) library, with some associated rooms for discussions of hot topics. When I was at university, whenever I tried to find a solution to some tricky problem, I spent hours and days to try and find it myself before asking others or going to the library. And then I spent even more time finding the right information, if I found it at all. Today, when I have some tricky problem, I might think an hour or two about possible solutions, but if I come up empty, or with a method that I consider impractical, I'll check on the internet. Compared to university 30 years ago, it takes a lot less time to find relevant information, but that information is also very often unreliable and needs double-checking, or it isn't specifically suited to my case and needs adaption. As a result, I still have to do a lot of work by myself, unless it really is a common and well-known problem, in which case there would be no point in "inventing the wheel again". In that respect, I consider the internet a blessing: it lets me gather information on a very specific problem, but still won't dumb me down, because I still have to use my brain for sifting through the information and adapting it to my special case. That said, it shouldn't come as a surprise that a tool invented to aid research would be helpful for researching. ;) As for people really dumbing down, the one aspect that I noticed this happening, is grammar and orthography: especially young people spend so much time in forums, chat rooms, and on social networks, that they don't bother watching their typing: their only goal is to confer information and as long as the people they're talking to understand what they write, that's good enough for them. I'd say that's not a problem as such, if those typing habits wouldn't spill over into areas where it is considered more important: e. g. at school, or at work. Also the way people interact with each other gets a lot more casual due to the way they interact via internet: some people seem to have forgotten there is a difference beteween twittering about a new game or writing an e-mail to your boss! Then again, this seems more like a generation problem: those who learned how to properly address your superiors, elders, and other people in spoken and written form before the advent of the internet may have trouble accepting the sloppy and casual internet communication style spilling over into real world communication. But younger people who grew up with the inter
Stefan_Lang wrote:
Compared to university 30 years ago, it takes a lot less time to find relevant information, but that information is also very often unreliable and needs double-checking, or it isn't specifically suited to my case and needs adaption
Versus the university where there was only the single source and no way to check it at all.
Stefan_Lang wrote:
As for people really dumbing down, the one aspect that I noticed this happening, is grammar and orthography: especially young people spend so much time in forums, chat rooms, and on social networks, that they don't bother watching their typing
You are claiming that 30 years ago in social gatherings that young people used proper grammar? And were you attending parties where you gave spelling tests?
Stefan_Lang wrote:
Then again, this seems more like a generation problem: those who learned how to properly address your superiors, elders, and other people in spoken and written form before the advent of the internet may have trouble accepting the sloppy and casual internet communication style spilling over into real world communication.
Then again those who had very, very limited social mingling 30 years ago (or 50) might presume that absolutely everyone acted in one way, and thus with the internet they should now realize that there are many, many ways for people to act. And hopefully they might question their assumption about how people (everyone) acted 30/50 years ago.
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I have been pondering this a lot lately. Many people are saying the same thing, that the Internet is making people ignorant. Indeed, someone discussed this with me only today. I think that the Internet has passed its best for a number of reasons: annoying adverts, censorship (often politically or irrationally motivated), annoying adverts, corporate web sites with cluttered pages full of rubbish (looking for the obvious and most important links is like looking for a needle in a haystack), annoying adverts, garbage download sites, annoying adverts, free software that isn't free, annoying adverts, non-downloadable content, annoying adverts, slow browsers with crashamatic plug-ins, annoying adverts, rude egotistical anti-social trolls on blogs, annoying adverts, search engines that find nothing but: trash, stolen content, corporate rubbish and annoying adverts .... . There can be no doubt, the Golden Age of the Internet is already over, it is now well into its Silver Age and heading towards an Age of Brass. :((
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
It's turned everyone into total wimps who can't even pull a sledge.
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I have been pondering this a lot lately. Many people are saying the same thing, that the Internet is making people ignorant. Indeed, someone discussed this with me only today. I think that the Internet has passed its best for a number of reasons: annoying adverts, censorship (often politically or irrationally motivated), annoying adverts, corporate web sites with cluttered pages full of rubbish (looking for the obvious and most important links is like looking for a needle in a haystack), annoying adverts, garbage download sites, annoying adverts, free software that isn't free, annoying adverts, non-downloadable content, annoying adverts, slow browsers with crashamatic plug-ins, annoying adverts, rude egotistical anti-social trolls on blogs, annoying adverts, search engines that find nothing but: trash, stolen content, corporate rubbish and annoying adverts .... . There can be no doubt, the Golden Age of the Internet is already over, it is now well into its Silver Age and heading towards an Age of Brass. :((
Superbly put!
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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It's turned everyone into total wimps who can't even pull a sledge.
You can't turn off a wheel, durrh....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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Stefan_Lang wrote:
Compared to university 30 years ago, it takes a lot less time to find relevant information, but that information is also very often unreliable and needs double-checking, or it isn't specifically suited to my case and needs adaption
Versus the university where there was only the single source and no way to check it at all.
Stefan_Lang wrote:
As for people really dumbing down, the one aspect that I noticed this happening, is grammar and orthography: especially young people spend so much time in forums, chat rooms, and on social networks, that they don't bother watching their typing
You are claiming that 30 years ago in social gatherings that young people used proper grammar? And were you attending parties where you gave spelling tests?
Stefan_Lang wrote:
Then again, this seems more like a generation problem: those who learned how to properly address your superiors, elders, and other people in spoken and written form before the advent of the internet may have trouble accepting the sloppy and casual internet communication style spilling over into real world communication.
Then again those who had very, very limited social mingling 30 years ago (or 50) might presume that absolutely everyone acted in one way, and thus with the internet they should now realize that there are many, many ways for people to act. And hopefully they might question their assumption about how people (everyone) acted 30/50 years ago.
jschell wrote:
Versus the university where there was only the single source and no way to check it at all.
There was no need to check because people didn't bother to publish articles and books unless they were truly relevant: the only way to provide information was to publish an article or book on paper, requiring a considerable amount of money and effort, and peer review. Moreover, resources used in an article or book were (supposed to be) quoted, so you did have a means to check related articles, it just took more effort to actually get your hands on and read them.
jschell wrote:
You are claiming that 30 years ago in social gatherings that young people used proper grammar?
Actually, yes. If you count the mostly scientific discussions via Ethernet. Of course, the same was not true for face to face social gatherings - but the verbal communication style used on such occasions did not spill over to written language. Not at first anyway. Today, the brunt of social exchange happens in written form, and the written form in this exchange mirrors the spoken exchange in face to face gatherings. Certainly not everywhere, but it appears to be spreading. Maybe what's bugging me most about this is that spoken communication includes gestures and facial expression, without which the conveyed meaning becomes blurred or ambiguous. I'm not saying this isn't also a problem with 'proper' formal writing, but at least by using a standardized formal language you exclude one source of misunderstandings.
jschell wrote:
And hopefully they might question their assumption about how people (everyone) acted 30/50 years ago.
I do. However, many (institutions, teachers) complain about the ongoing deterioration of student writing skills. Assuming this is a fact, I am pointing out the internet as a probable cause. IMHO.
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You can't turn off a wheel, durrh....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Rob Philpott wrote:
You can't turn off a wheel, durrh....
Accurate, and completely missing the point.
The wheel allowed people to do far more work for the same amount of effort. It revolutionized technology and how we lived. The internet allows people to find almost any information known to any human being. It is a multiplier for intellect, in the same way as the wheel is a multiplier for muscle. In addition, communication can take place across the entire globe, and have a permanency of at least a few years, often without the need for storing hundreds of paper documents per person.
It sounds like in the course of exploring the internet, you have discovered human social activity you find disagreeable. How you managed to avoid human social activity you find grossly disagreeable throughout elementary, middle school (if it was not subsumed into elementary or high school), high school and possibly college, university or other higher education, is completely beyond me. Or perhaps you've just never learned how to deal civily with people you dislike. But somehow, that people can do things, and have a right to do things, you dislike seems to have come as a shock, horror and surprise to you.
I have a few human social activities I find disagreeable, myself. They include acting like a spoiled child, and being an internet tough guy.
tl;dr - Welcome to the real world. Population: 7 billion...And you. -
Rob Philpott wrote:
You can't turn off a wheel, durrh....
Accurate, and completely missing the point.
The wheel allowed people to do far more work for the same amount of effort. It revolutionized technology and how we lived. The internet allows people to find almost any information known to any human being. It is a multiplier for intellect, in the same way as the wheel is a multiplier for muscle. In addition, communication can take place across the entire globe, and have a permanency of at least a few years, often without the need for storing hundreds of paper documents per person.
It sounds like in the course of exploring the internet, you have discovered human social activity you find disagreeable. How you managed to avoid human social activity you find grossly disagreeable throughout elementary, middle school (if it was not subsumed into elementary or high school), high school and possibly college, university or other higher education, is completely beyond me. Or perhaps you've just never learned how to deal civily with people you dislike. But somehow, that people can do things, and have a right to do things, you dislike seems to have come as a shock, horror and surprise to you.
I have a few human social activities I find disagreeable, myself. They include acting like a spoiled child, and being an internet tough guy.
tl;dr - Welcome to the real world. Population: 7 billion...And you.My God, are you for real? Of course I saw the point, yes very good and I'm sure what you've written will be up to the same intellectual standard as your last post - hence I can't be bothered to read it.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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My God, are you for real? Of course I saw the point, yes very good and I'm sure what you've written will be up to the same intellectual standard as your last post - hence I can't be bothered to read it.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Rob Philpott wrote:
My God, are you for real? Of course I saw the point, yes very good and I'm sure what you've written will be up to the same intellectual standard as your last post - hence I can't be bothered to read it.
Aww. And I even included a tl;dr just for you. :)
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Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened. Firstly everyone has dumbed down. In the same way that you don't need to be able to do arithmetic because a calculator is close by, now you don't need to know anything because Google is close by. Brazil? Wozzatt? Dunno, Google it. As well as becoming more stupid, it's making us more inward looking and vain. That's what Facebook is for, and if you ask me a good cure for world over-population would be to find out exactly who is on facebook and kill them. Then there'd be no more-touched up photographs or tumid biographies of dull lives clogging up the wires. As a commuter I get so depressed watching people nurturing their Facebook profile on their iPhones as if it were their life support. Twitter is a great place to voice your bigoted views and get ignored or occasionally incite an enraged storm. And as for the CodeProject Lounge, God, where do you start? Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post. I saw something on the TV recently about the 1950s. Were people happier? “I think so, they talked more.”
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Were people happier in the 50s? Or is it a dystopian memory based on old TV shows? In the 50s - We had polio, lead paint, McCarthyism, Jim Crow laws, domestic violence wasn't illegal, no air conditioning, no freeways (is that a plus or minus?), asbestos was a common household material, no clear air or clean water acts (rivers caught fire), atomic bomb drills (duck and cover). I could go on, but I'm glad I didn't have to live in the 50s.
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jschell wrote:
Versus the university where there was only the single source and no way to check it at all.
There was no need to check because people didn't bother to publish articles and books unless they were truly relevant: the only way to provide information was to publish an article or book on paper, requiring a considerable amount of money and effort, and peer review. Moreover, resources used in an article or book were (supposed to be) quoted, so you did have a means to check related articles, it just took more effort to actually get your hands on and read them.
jschell wrote:
You are claiming that 30 years ago in social gatherings that young people used proper grammar?
Actually, yes. If you count the mostly scientific discussions via Ethernet. Of course, the same was not true for face to face social gatherings - but the verbal communication style used on such occasions did not spill over to written language. Not at first anyway. Today, the brunt of social exchange happens in written form, and the written form in this exchange mirrors the spoken exchange in face to face gatherings. Certainly not everywhere, but it appears to be spreading. Maybe what's bugging me most about this is that spoken communication includes gestures and facial expression, without which the conveyed meaning becomes blurred or ambiguous. I'm not saying this isn't also a problem with 'proper' formal writing, but at least by using a standardized formal language you exclude one source of misunderstandings.
jschell wrote:
And hopefully they might question their assumption about how people (everyone) acted 30/50 years ago.
I do. However, many (institutions, teachers) complain about the ongoing deterioration of student writing skills. Assuming this is a fact, I am pointing out the internet as a probable cause. IMHO.
Stefan_Lang wrote:
There was no need to check because people didn't bother to publish articles and books unless they were truly relevant
Which doesn't say anything about correctness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_Gods%3F[^] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Effect[^] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth[^]
Stefan_Lang wrote:
Actually, yes. If you count the mostly scientific discussions via Ethernet.
30 years ago discussions on ethernet was limited to a very, very small subset of people. And 20 years ago the subset of people with access to ethernet was probably just a small fraction of those that had access to computers.
Stefan_Lang wrote:
I'm not saying this isn't also a problem with 'proper' formal writing, but at least by using a standardized formal language you exclude one source of misunderstandings.
And you base that assumption on what?
Stefan_Lang wrote:
However, many (institutions, teachers) complain about the ongoing deterioration of student writing skills.
Because of things like an much larger student population, lack of real information on writing skills from many years ago along with the vastly increased ability of everyone, including teachers, to complain about everything.
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Stefan_Lang wrote:
There was no need to check because people didn't bother to publish articles and books unless they were truly relevant
Which doesn't say anything about correctness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_Gods%3F[^] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Effect[^] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth[^]
Stefan_Lang wrote:
Actually, yes. If you count the mostly scientific discussions via Ethernet.
30 years ago discussions on ethernet was limited to a very, very small subset of people. And 20 years ago the subset of people with access to ethernet was probably just a small fraction of those that had access to computers.
Stefan_Lang wrote:
I'm not saying this isn't also a problem with 'proper' formal writing, but at least by using a standardized formal language you exclude one source of misunderstandings.
And you base that assumption on what?
Stefan_Lang wrote:
However, many (institutions, teachers) complain about the ongoing deterioration of student writing skills.
Because of things like an much larger student population, lack of real information on writing skills from many years ago along with the vastly increased ability of everyone, including teachers, to complain about everything.
My "assumptions" are based on actual studies, online discussions and articles. And on 20+ years of experience of reading contributions to public forums and discussion boards. It is really not hard to find scientifical work about this topic either:
A study investigated whether college students' writing skills have deteriorated in recent years. Writing samples from upper-level undergraduate or first-year graduate courses from 1956 (at a public university), 1965 (at a private university), and from 1978 and 1993 (at a private college) were examined. Samples were analyzed for errors in spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation as well as for style. Results indicated that college students' writing ability has declined.
(Abstract from An Examination of College Writing Skills: Have They Deteriorated?[^]) But anyway, I made my contribution to this topic in an attempt to describe my personal experience, not exact some scientifical proof. You are welcome to your own opinion. ;)