What’s Happening to ‘its’?

In the old world of fifty years ago, everyone knew how to differentiate and spell its and it’s.  Today almost no one can.  It’s really very odd as it is so simple.  It’s with the apostrophe is an abbreviation of it is.  Its is the genitive of it – of it, no apostrophe.  Yet even from my sonnet head teacher, I received a letter recently (email) which used the apostrophe it’s for the of it version.  If headteachers of an expensive private school no longer know one its from another, the situation is getting serious.

Is this a sign of the stress everyone is living under?  No one has time or considers reaching for an authoritative dictionary to work out how to spell these two most commonly used words – even headteachers in their constant emails.

So confused is the world becoming by all these spellings and misspellings that there is now a third version is appearing in texts – its’.  Rightly or wrongly this is being used as a way to spell of it.  Here is an example from the previous post apparently well written in every other way by someone who is educated.

‘You can be assured that no one else (that I could detect) paid a jot of attention to its’ presence in any way.’

Would it not be simpler to differentiate and spell the two original terms correctly?  I would have thought so.  The post comes from Boston, New England – so maybe the Americans have sprouted a new method which will soon be crossing the Atlantic.  I hope it doesn’t.