I have seen it in myself, so I think it may be the same cause. We are so used to these devices that we no longer retain long term information but instead focus on short term information that is trending. We 'assume' that it is always there and we no longer need to remember everything.

There was a large push of self help, growth hacking, productivity tips and tricks until the pandemic hit. Those were heavily sponsored and coordinated the more I think about it. New Age is about the same size of a book store but I don't hear people talk new age stuff, I do hear people talk productivity all the time. So it must be socially promoted and highly effective at being adopted by people.

One thing that these hacks teach is that you need to cut off unnecessary information, which may or may not be true, but the general consensus has lead to people just relying on their devices to fetch them their information.

Even the discussions on the internet have begun to fall to levels of lower and lower quality I feel because in their minds people don't feel the need to do the full job....it's been done and is available on the interwebs.....this forum does that a lot and I am definitely guilty of this too.

There is a general problem amongst people. They aren't doing their due diligence and making every effort to convey or retain information anymore. They have adopted the second brain ....