Merryn Somerset Webb

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7,282 appearances 48 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard yesterday

Merryn Somerset Webb’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 48 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 13.

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Merryn Talks Money · What Career Should You Choose in the AI Age? · 21 Sep 2026 podcast

They were even down from what we saw in 2022.

And when we saw...

depressing numbers for reading and mathematical skills around the world in 2022.

We went, nah, COVID, it'll get better.

It'll be fine.

But it isn't.

It hasn't got better.

It's got worse.

And I know that all generations look at the one below them and go, well, they're useless.

It's getting worse.

And normally it isn't.

But these numbers suggest that there is something going on.

would you blame technology uh for this decline in literacy and mathematical ability would you look at that and say well this is this is social media this is children not paying attention or or is it something's gone wrong in teaching and we know there's always fads aren't there in the way that children are taught and there's different ways that children are taught and if you

drill down into the numbers that we've seen globally, something quite interesting has happened to England, where mathematical and literary skills have remained fairly static, and there's been no devotion to any particular type of educational fad in England.

It's stuck to basic old-fashioned ways of teaching, give or take.

And so England now finds that it's moved from number 20, 25 in the world in most things up into being in the top 10 in almost every educational skill.

Whereas at the same time, we've seen devolved areas of the UK where maybe there's been something more faddish going on, Scotland, Wales, where we've seen declines.

So it suggests that that could be part of it globally, a different way of teaching.

But another part of it, it seems fairly obvious to adults anyway, that it is social media related.

One of the reasons I think that people may be confused or are concerned about the connection between AI and social media is because, of course, AI has invaded social media.

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