oh yeah, time does the sifting for us on that regard

i think the social media has also shaped how we interact with other forms of media. considering we can access lots more information now than ever before there's a need for everything to be instantenous. i notice pretty terrible characterization in anything YA (haven't thought about new books vs. old books) myself. that being said I wouldn't go as far as to say our quality of writing has decreased or anything but i do notice there's a lot more options to sift through these days and loads of them are pretty mediocre. more power to writers though :)