I wanted to point out that in the most recent post on his Substack James Marriott covers a lot of the same territory I have over the years here on the cognitive, social, and political implications of the abandoning of reading. I’ve categorized it as “Visualcy”. He refers to it as “post-literacy”. He cites many of the same sources I have for the last 25 years on the subject. Highly recommended.
If you don’t like the vapid, agonistic, and all-too-frequently pointless character of our present politics, a lot of what we’re seeing can be explained by the cognitive and behavioral impact of not reading.
I think you’ve been way ahead of the curve on this.
And I think a lot of the “reading” that’s taking place is on social media, which just adds to the problem.
I started writing about this before smartphones were “a thing”.
One factor may be because I’m what’s called an “early adopter” as was my father before me. I’ve had a computer in my home for 50 years. I’ve had a home network for 35 years, a wireless home network with Internet connectivity for 30 years.
Opinions vary. Socrates on the written word:
Of course, we don’t know this about Socrates from Socrates—because he didn’t write it down! Fortunately, his student, Plato, did happen to write it down. Those young whippersnappers and their ink!