The Lost Joy of Encountering Good Writing

Published: 2026-04-07

I feel like over the years, the quality of writing by the general public has dropped.

What sort of things am I referring to? Just small messages like a Facebook post by a business, or a Teams message in work. Things that are seemingly throw-away.

The grammar is poor, typos galore and just a general sense that no effort has been put into it.

Given that these are throw-away things, I get it. Why bother?

But at the same time, this means that when there is clearly effort put into it, I really appreciate it. When you see someone has put a bit of thought into it, proof read and reworked it, it’s a nice little win.

I feel like even that has now been lost though. Why? Because of AI, and more specifically LLMs.

Previously when I saw a nicely thought out and well written message I’d get a little kick from seeing it.

Now when I see a nicely thought out and well written message, I don’t know whether it is the writer or AI.

And that’s a genuine shame.