My high school students don't know how to take notes or do research

I teach environmental science to 10th-12th graders. I've been teaching for 10 years and I've seen my students get steadily more clueless. Last night I gave them a very specific assignment- take notes on a video, turn it in, and do a rabbit hole exercise for the next class.<br><br>The rabbit hole exercise is one I learned at an AP conference, which is basically a superior treasure hunt. I give them a prompt that is relevant to what we are doing, along with a source that will help them with said prompt. They have to look at that source, figure out what to do next, and then present their findings at the end of class. rabbit hole exercises are excellent for teaching kids how to do research and I've always loved them.<br><br>I gave them 35 minutes of class to work on this. They got nothing done. <br><br>I walked around and looked at their notes- many of them had taken zero notes. Most had a sentence or two written down and nothing else. I asked them what was going on and they said they were ready to start the rabbit hole. I asked them to read the prompt and the source to figure out where to go next and they just looked at me. When I walked around, about half the kids in the room were on Tiktok or Snapchat. <br><br>They don't know how to take notes. They don't know how to do research. They can't figure out how to follow instructions. When I ask them to do it again they tell me I didn't explain it well enough. I can give them a formula and a handout and they can't remember either.<br><br>Is this a me problem? Am I just getting dumber?