I've seen my younger cousin pull up his phone for a dopamine hit during the 17 seconds he waits for his video game loading screen to finish. It just isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. The algorithms are crazy and extremely effective, and it's all so accessible.
And of course it's not just kids, it's everyone. But kids are the only humans that are regularly and uniformly tested for aptitude with public results we can all look at and discuss. Just for a random statistic to support this assertion, over 50% of US adults haven't read a single book in the past 12 months. Something that would have been unthinkable in the 1990s.
I recall protesting to my parents by asking if they got shit from their own for being glued to the tv as kids but they also explained it was different back then.
I mean look, it very well may be different now. I don’t have kids and have no expertise on any science of child rearing. But “it isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago” is also something I heard 20 years ago.
Are you watching TV when you have a free thirty seconds at the urinal? Waiting for the elevator for a minute? The red light? Any waking moment at all with the TV in front of you? It was certainly not ideal then given how addictive marketing on these screens has always been, but its even worse now in terms of attention span.
Reading is more than interpreting simple letters, words, sentences or even paragraphs. It is just as much about following an argument, retaining information from reading, and being critical of the information in parallel. There is very little written content of sufficient length to practice such skills online, especially content to which children and teens would be exposed.
People have always taken the path of least resistance. Radio, TV, and now the internet has gradually shifted the path of least resistance away from reading.
Not to mention the constant distractions one is constantly bombarded with even if one where to try. Popup ads, newsletter signups, inline gifs and memes, notifications, etc. Heck, even Wikipedia breaks up the text with constant hyperlinks which break up the linearity of the page.
