nobody reads anything, for the most part, and when they do, they act like they didn’t.

It's actually even more insidious than a lack of reading comprehension.

It's a lack of retention in memory. People read an email, it blends in with all the other email they read, it lacks salience, it's the metaphorical "in one ear, out the other". Text lacks immediacy so it doesn't get attention, retention, or action.

This is, needless to say, not a solvable problem within any given team, company, or industry.

Edit: The irony of writing this in a HN comment does not elude me.