Do people seem genuinely dumber than they were a few years ago?

First off, let me clarify what this question is not: I am NOT asking "are younger people who are now becoming adults dumber than people my age/older people?" That is very much not how this question is phrased, but I know some people have such a hate boner for the youth that this clarification felt necessary. My question is about the population at large regardless of demographic.

I just feel as though these days it is often the case that no matter the setting or topic, people just seem to be clamoring to make asses of themselves. Doesn't matter if it's a small social circle, a random irl interaction, or various communities online; doesn't matter if it's about politics, gaming, health and fitness, you name it. It really just feels like (noticeably more so than several years ago) everybody wants to have an opinion even if they haven't thought about why they have it or why other people might think differently. It feels like people don't even want to fully read/listen to a question before responding with whatever it is they want to say, even if it's not particularly relevant. It feels like nobody's interested in changing their mind even on insignificant trivialities. To me, it really just feels like more people are going through life with their brain turned off and couldn't care less, even if it negatively affects those around them.

I'm not necessarily looking for attempted explanations (please don't let me come back to this post seeing several multi-paragraph mini-manifestos about the state of society 💀), I really just want to know: am I alone in this? Have other people been feeling this way? Are there specific instances or examples from the past 3-5 years that come to your mind as personal anecdotal evidence of this? Let me know.

New user pass phrase: Thank you for your answers

EDIT/UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who replied! While a few people seem to have not fully understood the assignment (or read the entire post, ironic I know), overall it's been nice to see the variety of responses. While I wasn't looking for explanations, the fact that numerous commenters pointed to the same handful of reasons (a specific trend in politics, prevalence of social media/influencers, and long-term effects of mass repeat COVID infections) demonstrates to me that plenty of people have been recognizing the kinds of issues I was asking about. Which was basically the solidarity I was hoping to see 🙂 Makes me feel just a bit less crazy 😂