A weirdo approaches you with a highly unusual request. You suspect the goal is to humiliate you or make you into a dummy somehow, which is actually their goal. No thanks.
> I know generally people now struggle to consume long form content but it even being able to read a story?
There is reading and then there is reading an unknown text out loud in public while being judged. The two are not the same thing. I had to read publicly when I was a student years ago when smartphones were a new thing. They handed me the text with instructions to reread it at least twice ideally out loud before performing.
The point is, it is not like 20 years ago a good student would be expected to read super fluidly out loud in public without at least a little preparation.
Way to miss the forest for the trees. "The grocery store" is just "a place people from a wide variety of backgrounds have to go to." Nobody's talking about actually accosting people to give them tests. The point is that everyday people would struggle with this task if they weren't specifically prepared for it.
> I know generally people now struggle to consume long form content but it even being able to read a story?
There is reading and then there is reading an unknown text out loud in public while being judged. The two are not the same thing. I had to read publicly when I was a student years ago when smartphones were a new thing. They handed me the text with instructions to reread it at least twice ideally out loud before performing.
The point is, it is not like 20 years ago a good student would be expected to read super fluidly out loud in public without at least a little preparation.