"A century ago, Lim writes, presidential speeches were pitched at a college reading level; today, they’re down to eighth grade, and if the trend continues, next century’s State of the Union addresses will be conducted at the level of “a comic strip or a fifth-grade textbook.” (“Iran’s crawling with bad guys: BAP!”) Since 1913, the length of the average presidential sentence has fallen from 35 words to 22. Between Nixon and the second Bush, the average presidential sound bite shrank from 42 seconds to 7. Today’s State of the Unions inspire roughly 30 seconds of applause for every 60 seconds of speech" - Sanjeev Singh

The decline in the quality of discourse is what's striking to me. Idiocracy here we come :(. - Sanjeev Singh

My sentiments exactly. - April Buchheit

Is TV responsible? - Jim Norris

I haven't seen the research, but it sounds like the decline was well underway before the advent of tv. - Sanjeev Singh

I was listening to King's "I have a dream" speech over the weekend and was amazed by the verbosity of it. People these days will tune of those delicately worded, but complex sentences. I wonder if part of the reason for the dumbening (heh!) is that speeches these days are aimed at wider audiences. - Thaths