Comment by mezzie2

Right, it's a perfect storm.

And I really do think we'll just give up on the idea of literacy being required in society as that generation grows up. Fixing it would be too much work and cost too much money/time, and would be incompatible with current American social values. I also genuinely do think a lot of Boomers and Gen X have mild lead poisoning, so our elders are probably also going to struggle more the older they get. (Who knows, maybe the microplastics are also eating the contextual reasoning parts of our brains and we'll have the same problem.) So if 80% of society isn't functionally literate, functional literacy will go away as an information requirement for the average citizen.

I wouldn't be shocked if literacy becomes a college level skill that's only taught until students stop having to consult sources/teaching materials from before the 2010s/2020s. There will be a few exceptions, like the historians, but eventually literacy is going to be seen as an eccentric skill that used to be a sign of culture but is no longer relevant. (As an example, my basic knowledge of Latin would be very impressive in a lot of historical periods but in 2024 America it's just a weird personal quirk.)