Every generation is convinced the next one will be the end of civilisation. I try to hold onto that scepticism. But I’ve also been privileged in working alongside people who have dedicated their lives to teaching children to read and write — and that’s given me a front-row seat to how hard-won literacy actually is, and how much sits on top of it.
As a video professional, I know the power of the moving image. It can make adrenaline course through your body or possess the seductive and soothing quality of fire watching, that our race has enjoyed for thousands of years.
I also know its limits. Video can move people, inform them, persuade them — but it doesn’t build the same muscle that sustained reading does: the patience to sit with a complex argument, to hold contradictory ideas in your head, to be sceptical of a claim rather than swept along by it.
What’s happening to reading right now doesn’t look like previous generational panics. It looks structural. And the consequences for how societies think, argue, and govern themselves are still unknown.
Worth a read: