@Benny B has a point, something I've touched on before. I wouldn't say 'stupider' though... but humans are very adaptable, and adapt to what is most prevalent. Today, that is a form of social media which privileges engagement volume over meaning, nuance, delicacy or even communicative efficacy. Why write a love poem when you can send an aubergine?
There is the infamous study that showed digital natives' eye muscles 'read' differently.... not to the end of the line, or even consecutive lines, but adopted a sequence tracking the 'golden triangle'. This isn't to say others read incorrectly... there is no right or wrong in communication, communication changes. There is no 'better'.
A highly adapted skill set is best suited to the environment of its development, the crucible of conditioning. Reading Dickens, Gogol, or early Stephen King or Franzen is just the same as looking at a Titian or Picasso.... one sees differently to those that first saw the works, so we should afford that difference. Like olfactory sense, we don't see what we're acclimatised to. Only the unusual, the new, smells.
I do err on the traditionalist side. I dislike social media, dislike distractions, and privilege long form articulation with nuance and delicacy. But perhaps not to the point of being like a smug luddite congratulating themselves for ignorance and ineptness with new technology. I do, however, feel that there needs to be a balance and some tenors are more appropriate than others, which is why overly glib and flat 80char machine gun responses in the literature thread irk me.
