The heck it doesn't. It is just one of those "evaporative skills" that you cite. I call it the dumbing down of our society. Don't get me wrong, it didn't just start at the electronic age. Read letters and papers from your ancestors. The style was much more flowing, and intelligent. Needless to say the actual vocabulary of those who were literate then, had to be twice as much as people today.
Face it our language has gone ghetto.
Evaporating skills are not society getting dumb, they’re society moving on. People don’t have to write cursive anymore, so they don’t, even if they’re taught it they don’t. There’s other skills we’ve had to learn in the new modern world. Most of my ancestors couldn’t install an operating system, I can. Their language is more wordy, not necessarily more intelligent or a better flow, I’ll especially challenge the flow claim. There was a lot more beating language to death then, stringing together a bunch of words when half that is necessary. Our language isn’t ghetto, it’s to the point. We no longer use an entire paragraph to say somebody ran away in fear.