Devices and social media are burning out attention spans, impairing learning and retention ability.

The average college student today - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522966 - March 2025

A big part of it is a lack of school choice in many states. No competition. No incentive to innovate. No accountability for results. Teachers unions that are always on strike to extract more. Politicized curriculums that are centralized by the state. It’s all just deeply broken.

It did not fail. It was destroyed. And most of what we see around us today flows from that; and it is why the pendulum will not swing back.