Today's Document
tannertan36
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ellievsbear
roma★
Kiana Khansmith
No title available
Product Placement
Sade Olutola
sheepfilms
PR's Tumblrdome
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
almost home
Love Begins
Discoholic 🪩
cherry valley forever
🪼
ojovivo
Peter Solarz
@theartofmadeline
seen from Greece
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from Germany
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seen from Malaysia
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@withpurewhitewings
I am whatever the opposite of a speed runner is. I am a game meanderer. I have to look at literally everything. I am overly cautious in every way. I forget to pause and wander away from the game. I take a minimum 7 hours to get through any given level. If you give me a timer I will cry.
"Six weeks into the term, I assigned my rhetoric and writing students a 20-page article. It was the same length I had assigned for five years and the same length I had read without complaint as an undergraduate a decade ago. Not one student finished it.
When I asked why, a student answered honestly: It was too long, and she kept losing track of what the paper was about. This was not a remedial class: These were students who had cleared the admissions process and written essays good enough to get them here. Yet a routine academic reading assignment had defeated them.
Every generation of professors has complained that their students cannot read. The lament is usually overblown, but data have caught up to anecdote, and what I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch. There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires.
In February 2024, Adam Kotsko, who teaches in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, wrote in Slate that students who once handled 30 pages of reading per class meeting now seem “intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding.” Crucially, he added that this is “not a matter of laziness on the part of the students” but of underlying skills they were never given a chance to build.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2024 investigation found the same pattern across institutions as different as the Stevens Institute of Technology and Wellesley College, where the average SAT exceeds 1400. Nicholaus Gutierrez, an assistant professor at Wellesley, told The Chronicle that the baseline for what students consider a reasonable amount of work has dropped so noticeably that he has cut his readings accordingly; a 750-word essay now strikes many students as long. At Stevens, the science and technology studies associate professor Theresa MacPhail described following the mantra of “meet your students where they are” for so long that she has begun to feel “like a cruise director organizing games of shuffleboard.”
Worse, the national data tell the same story in colder language. On the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing assessment, which is the most recent comprehensive writing benchmark, only 24 percent of 12th graders reached the Proficient level, and just 3 percent reached Advanced; another 21 percent scored below Basic. The reading side of the ledger is worse, and getting worse fast: The 2024 NAEP results released in September 2025 show 12th-grade reading scores at the lowest level recorded since the assessment began in 1992. Thirty-two percent of 12th graders now score below NAEP Basic in reading, meaning that, in the assessment’s own language, they likely “cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text.” And yet more than half of these same seniors reported being accepted to a four-year college. That last sentence is the whole problem in one line: We are admitting a cohort that cannot read at a college level and are pretending otherwise.
Why is this happening? One reason, of course, is smartphones.
I came into teaching as a skeptic of the anti-smartphone argument: I had a phone in my pocket throughout high school and college in the 2010s, and I read long books anyway. I now think I was wrong, because the neuroscience has caught up. In a 2017 paper, Adrian F. Ward and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business showed that the mere presence of a participant’s smartphone — whether that be face down, powered off, untouched, or across the desk out of vision — measurably reduces available working memory and fluid intelligence on cognitive tests, with the largest effects on the most phone-dependent users. A 2022 study by Motoyasu Honma and colleagues at Japan’s Showa University used near-infrared spectroscopy to compare reading on a smartphone with reading the same passage on paper, and found that smartphone reading produced overactivity in the prefrontal cortex, suppressed sigh generation, and led to general lower comprehension scores; the authors argued that the sigh inhibition and prefrontal overload were causally linked to the comprehension decline.
So when a student tells me they “kept losing track” of a 20-page article, I have to acknowledge that they may be describing a measurable neurological condition. The neural pathways that support sustained attention are built by use, and they atrophy without it. Your body is a use-it-or-lose-it system, and the brain is no exception.
Another reason for the decline in student reading capability is increasing reliance on generative AI. In June 2025, Nataliya Kosmyna and colleagues at the MIT Media Lab released a preprint titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” They divided 54 participants into three groups writing SAT-style essays — one using ChatGPT, the second group using a search engine, the last group using nothing — and monitored brain activity with a 32-channel EEG. The ChatGPT group showed the lowest neural connectivity of the three, with up to 55 percent reduced connectivity compared with the brain-only group, and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Eighty-three percent of LLM users could not quote a single line from essays they had written minutes earlier. When the LLM group was forced to write without AI in a follow-up session, their brain activity did not bounce back to baseline; the researchers coined the term “cognitive debt” for the lingering deficit.
This is the first neurophysiological evidence that early reliance on LLMs measurably alters the brain’s engagement with writing tasks, and it is consistent with what those of us in front of classrooms are watching happen in real time. When I assign analysis, I am not trying to extract a polished product; I am trying to put the student’s mind through resistance in order to make it stronger. Offloading the struggle to a chatbot does not “free students up for higher-order work.” It deprives them of building the strength to do any substantial cognitive work at all.
There is a final factor that is contributing to this decline in reading skills, and that is that the students arriving in my classroom today are the first cohort to have experienced Common Core-influenced reading instruction across the entirety of their K–12 schooling. Whatever the standards’ original intent, the on-the-ground implementation in many districts replaced sustained reading with the practice of pulling “evidence” from disconnected short passages, the same format used on the standardized tests that increasingly determine school funding. The education scholar Natalie Wexler, among others, has documented this pivot in detail: Students drilled on “finding the main idea” in two-paragraph excerpts never build the stamina or background knowledge that longform reading requires. The pandemic then added fuel to a fire that was already burning. NAEP scores for 13-year-olds dropped sharply in 2022 and have not recovered. A 2023 EdWeek survey found that 24 percent of secondary-school administrators described pandemic learning loss in English and language arts as “severe or very severe.”
In July 2025, the journalist Mary Harrington argued in The New York Times that “thinking is becoming a luxury good.” The ability to read deeply and reason at length is fragmenting along class lines as ultra-processed digital media replaces text in everyday life, much as ultra-processed food has replaced cooking. Her longer treatment of the subject in First Things makes the more provocative case that we are witnessing the end of print culture itself, and with it the end of the cognitive substrate on which modern liberal democracy was built.
I see this stratification in the classroom and on the page every week. My students from districts that protected sustained reading through small class sizes, strict phone policies, and faculty who refused to teach to the test all arrive with their attention relatively intact. My students from districts that surrendered to devices and standardized testing arrive cognitively winded. A democracy that requires a literate electorate is now training one fraction of that electorate out of literacy while marketing to the other a “deep work” lifestyle as a luxury good. The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.
I do what I can in my own classroom to address the problems. I break 20-page articles into two halves and assign the first half with explicit analytical tasks. I require exploratory writing before formal drafts. I model (visibly, on the board) how to track an argument across pages or distinguish a source’s claim from my own analysis. I make structured peer review explicit, because the workshop format I used to take for granted now collapses into “this is good” and “maybe add more details” the moment I step back.
But I want to be plain about the limits of what an individual instructor can do, and all of these solutions have costs. Scaffolding a 20-page article into halves compromises the integrity of the argument I am asking students to engage, just as modeling note-taking in a credit-bearing rhetoric course is using a college slot to teach a middle-school skill. None of the syllabi I teach are designed to deliver this type of cognitive rehabilitation, and pretending otherwise has produced credential inflation. We cannot keep conferring degrees on students who cannot do what the degree is supposed to certify.
I’m afraid I don’t have answers. I do, however, have some questions that may point us in the right direction. If higher education is going to respond to the reading crisis as a structural problem rather than a private burden carried by composition instructors and adjuncts, it has to stop avoiding the following questions: If a majority of incoming students cannot read at a level the curriculum requires, are we admitting students we cannot serve, or offering a curriculum we cannot provide?
Why are first-year writing and reading-intensive general-education courses still the most adjunctified, lowest-paid, highest-load corner of the university, at the precise moment when their work has become the most important work the institution does? What is the responsible institutional response for AI usage: Is it a syllabus statement, or a sequencing principle that requires students to demonstrate the cognitive work themselves before AI assistance is permitted?
Why are most college classrooms still phone-permissive by default? K–12 districts from Florida to California are now banning phones bell to bell; higher education has somehow lagged behind the public schools. Universities benefit from a pipeline they did not build and refuse to repair. What would it mean for a university system to invest seriously in the reading instruction happening in the high schools that feed it, rather than treating remediation as something to be quietly outsourced to first-year composition instructors?
The thing I am no longer willing to do is pretend this is a temporary adjustment period, or that “students will adapt.” They will not adapt on their own. The conditions that produced this collapse are still in place: the phones, the algorithmic feeds, the test-prep excerpts, staffing models that load the reading-intensive work onto the most precarious faculty, and now the chatbots that finish students’ sentences before they’ve even begun to think of them. If we want literate citizens, we will have to rebuild the conditions for literacy deliberately, against the grain of every incentive currently pointed the other way. I know the academy has the will to do that. It also has the obligation."
— Tyler Jagt, 1 June 2026, "My Students Can’t Read"
The generational collapse in literacy is measurable, persistent, and likely to get worse.
i call this one “using tumblr as a person of color”
might update with more images at some point
Some of the ones I've accumulated
a couple of addition to this post
another
The world is oftentimes such an ugly place, but sometimes it can be so beautiful.
Like, when two choirs, one from Croatia and the other from Zimbabwe, met on the opposite sides of a Lisbon subway station and both sang to each other.
I unfortunately do not know what the Zimbabwe children choir sang to them (although it was so beautiful), but the Croatian klapa Kastav sang 'Kuća puna naroda' (a house full of people).
And let my reward be a house full of people, my life, give me a voice, so I can embrace you with songs.
Video source: Irena Grdinić
The song the Zimbabwean choir sang is called Indodana!
Thank you so much!!! <3 <3 <3
making a model for comics-- this way I don't have to remember what the castle looks like and can take pictures in order to come up with interesting shots. It is just faster to do this than it is to learn blender. Cardboard tubes, hot glue, index cards, foam clay, assorted scraps.
NO NO NO NO!!!!!
this is how some people on here talk about punk
isn't the whole point of punk nonconformity? anarchy, spreading compassion, individualism? being true to yourself? i'm pretty sure you would be less of a punk if you wore the stereotypical all black, ripped stuff. a shirt that has punk stuff printed on it or clothes that have faux rips that go on to be mass produced is way less punk than mending clothes yourself or getting secondhand.
actually the whole point of punk is high jump kicking peoples' dogs
Go to wiki and educate yourself
yeah it literally says it right here on wikipedia. punk is about high jump kicking peoples' dogs.
zine i made about being a boring queer!
nothing more natural than changing and evolving and learning and discovering things about yourself.
happy pride from this fat trans butch
You can replace [ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY] with [SCROLLING] but watch out. This sucks bad 👍
Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:
1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!
2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.
3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)
hmmm, this seems to be some kind of curse breaking spell… be free ye reader
for all of you:
the inaugural women's professional baseball league teams
the article going over the whys of the names of anyone wants it is here, and it made me nearly cry at my desk:
https://www.womensprobaseballleague.com/2026/07/08/introducing-the-first-four-inspired-by-legends/
Ohhhhhhh! [article here]
Boston Hunters:
New England’s coastal hunter, the osprey doesn’t circle and wait. It picks its target, folds its wings, and hits the water talons first. We move fast and we move first, striking out the competition without hesitation. The Hunters are inspired by Harriot Hunt who, like the osprey, set her mind on a goal and made it happen. A trailblazing physician, she was one of the first women to practice medicine professionally in the USA, despite being denied admission to Harvard twice because of her gender. Like Harriot, the Hunters are ready leave their mark on history books.
Los Angeles Queens:
Inspired by our namesake, Lizzie Murphy – nicknamed the “Queen of the diamond”- the LA Queens are built on the confidence, presence and influence she carried throughout her trailblazing career, qualities that also define Los Angeles. Lizzie Murphy broke barriers at a time when opportunities for women in pro sports were extremely limited, showing the world how true talent rises to the top. We carry the Queen of the diamond’s legacy, channeling her confidence, ambition, and style. It’s time to claim the throne.
New York Heights:
Built around the ambition, intensity and relentless standards associated with New York, the Heights demands excellence. Just like our namesake, Dorothy Height, we’re ready to rise to the occasion. One of the most influential leaders of the civil and women’s rights movements, Dorothy Height dedicated her life to advancing equality for all. As we take the field, we‘re inspired by her confidence, leadership, and unwavering commitment to her goals. Just like Dorothy Height, we‘re ready to rise to the occasion and change the game.
San Francisco Firebells:
Forged in fire, inspired by the rebellious spirit of Firebelle Lil. San Francisco has burned and rebuilt more than any other American city, but like a phoenix, each time we’re knocked down we come back stronger. As a teenager, Lillie “Firebelle Lil” Hitchcock Coit famously leapt into action to help San Francisco volunteer firefighters battle a blaze on Telegraph Hill. She became an icon for the firefighters, known for rebellious attitude and open defiance of the gender norms of the time. Like Firebelle Lil, we show up and show out, bringing our energy, pride, and ambition with us every time we hit the field.
Man notices an Eagle eyeing the fish he just caught
*gets back to the nest* baby you are NEVER gonna believe how i got this fish
happy pride to the gay people in my computer <3
I love how Zohran Mamdani is wearing a suit everywhere. And if he has anything else he puts it ON TOP of the suit. A basketball jersey. A high-vis vest. All worn over the suit. He’s like the mayor character in a cartoon who’s always dressed as The Mayor. If I didn’t know who he was and he biked past me in NYC I’d be like holy shit was that the mayor
Not to bring the serious to a very fun post, but this reaction is exactly what Mamdani is working for with his image, because in a very real way the most effective way for him to be The Mayor is if he looks like The Mayor.
This is a man who is VIOLENTLY aware that when it comes to conservatives, he is a Muslim first, a Brown Man second, an Immigrant third, a Socialist fourth, and a human a very distant fifth, if considered at all. He was also a young adult during the Obama Years and will have seen Republicans rip Obama to shreds for wearing a tan suit instead of a dark one and use literally ANY excuse they could to try and degrade his image.
Despite the fact that a mayor who wears a T-shirt and jeans might "seem more approachable" in the eyes of the average American, Zohran Mamdani knows that someone with his profile fundamentally cannot get away with that the way his White colleagues can. He has instead put in the effort to look professional and BE approachable, because not only does it make it easier for him to reach and represent his constituents, it forces everyone, including both his opponents and establishment Democrats, to engage with the work he is doing instead of judging his image. The fact that he is always seen in a suit and is recognisably The Mayor is, while also something he has fun with, a deliberate choice to ensure he is as inarguably A Professional Politician To Be Taken Seriously. The added humour of e.g. the hi-vis is a bonus, only achievable because he works so hard to Look Like The Mayor.
Adding these tags from @haunted-stranger-garden bc they illustrate this brilliantly
Submitter comment: I'd like to submit this '[s]tudy of defensive behavior of a venomous snake as a new approach to understand snakebite' not for it's topic (worth studying!) but for it's insane methodology, which... well, I'll just let the researcher speak for himself:
[Q: Why did you decide to do this experiment?
A: Snake behavior has been generally neglected as a field of research, especially in Brazil. And most studies don’t examine what factors make them want to bite. If you study malaria, you can research the parasite that causes the disease—but if you don’t study the mosquito that carries it, you will never solve the problem. Up until now, the popular wisdom was that the jararaca would only attack if you touched it or stepped on it. But that was not what we found.
Q: Why did you need to be the victim?
A: The best way to do this research is to put snakes and a human together. In this case, the human was me. We put the snakes inside a ring on the floor of our lab until they got used to it, then I stepped in wearing special protective boots. I stepped close to the snake and also lightly on top of it. I didn’t put my whole weight on my foot, so I did not hurt the snakes. I tested 116 animals and stepped 30 times on every animal, totaling 40,480 steps.]
From the recent (aptly named) interview: Researcher steps on deadly vipers 40,000 times to better predict snakebites
oh to be loved by the sun
tbh i think the funniest phenomena that’s been happening in the last couple years is “youtuber, having gone too deep into the research hole, has been made an investigative journalist against their will”
Shout out to the guy who wanted to do some fun & silly little reviews but uncovered an illegal gambling operation
(Review 2)
this guy started out poking fun at australian politicians and ended up investigating the firebombing of his own home, during which he uncovered connections between the same politician he was making fun of + major organized crime
“So I did what any normal person would do, okay? I bought a hat and some makeup and disguised myself so that I could go undercover and do some digging on what I thought could be an illegal gambling operation that was fronting as a kebab restaurant.”
Amazing.
I for one, welcome this new niche genre of detective fiction.
I watched the second video and I feel it’s vitally important for people to know that the question “who firebombed my house?” isn’t a rhetorical one or a hyperbolic one, he genuinely doesn’t know because his list of proven enemies includes, in no particular order:
The cops
The terrorist surveillance branch of said cops
The government
No, seriously, multiple current and former government officials have openly stated beef with him
The most violent crime family in Australia
The gambling lobby
Money launderers
Other journalists
Drug dealers
The seventh richest man in Australia
Property Developers
And a partridge in a pear tree
He legitimately doesn’t know which one of his enemies might have done it (even though he has strong suspicions) because they’ve collectively already attempted to shut him up with legal attacks that could’ve resulted in actual jail time and many, many more shady tactics, including smear campaigns, outright lying to authorities (who also hate him) and lying under oath (the courts probably also hate him but are more quiet about it).
He legitimately went into hiding for a few months to assess the threat level after being firebombed and escaping with his life by sheer luck.
And you know what? He went right back to being an annoying little pissant to the most powerful people in his country and has become more prolific than ever after that video up there. I personally subscribed to his patreon because frankly? Anyone with that many enemies who legitimately want him silenced or dead deserves a few bucks a month.
And lets not talk about Hbomberguy, who wanted to know who made the original oof from roblox, and accidentally discovered that
Tommy Tallarico is a Fucking Liar lmao
A new edition to this went in willingly and it became way bigger than ever expected!
I started watching the LEGO video by Reckless Ben because I have a few rooms to paint and “small town LEGO thief” sounded like the perfect low-stakes, long-form background noise to keep me going. 4 hours later and what the fuck what the FUCKKK
My spouse and I have been watching the updates that are actively being released and calling each other like
