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Let me start off with a confession.
I’ve always been an avid reader. There was a time when I was constantly plowing through novels – Updike, Irving, Roth, Malamud, Atwood – plus occasional non-fiction, including all of Bob Woodward’s books.
And as the author of six books, I love the feel of a bound volume. It’s always a rush to get that first copy in your hands, a great feeling of accomplishment.
But all that was before smartphones – or more precisely, the kind of phones and apps that bombard us with Instagram and TikTok hot takes, endless images and AI summaries.
And now I’m not reading anywhere near as much. Too busy glued to the screen.
My attention span has shrunk. Harder to sit through, say, a two-hour movie. Easier to watch in shorter segments.
Has my brain been transformed? Have I just gotten lazy? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
I began dwelling on this after reading a Free Press essay by James Marriott titled “The Dawn of the Postliterate Society.”
First, it doesn’t apply to everyone. We have free will. We can set aside time for reading. And “Bleak House” is no easy breeze.
A study cited by the Times of London says students will spend 25 years of their lives glued to smartphones – Gen Z most of all. A quarter-century. Wowza.
Glenn Stephenson, co-founder of Fluid Focus, is quoted as saying we must “confront an uncomfortable truth: we unknowingly handed powerful, addictive technologies to children during their most formative years — without fully understanding the risks in doing so.”
So that’s it. It’s our fault.
Maybe adjustments will be made. Maybe the savvier students will see the need for a course correction. Maybe we’ll have so much wearable technology that it won’t seem as distracting.
Or maybe, alas, publishing will largely go the way of the horse-and-buggy business, aimed at the elite equivalent of those who own horses.
I’ve started a couple of books, then put them aside for later reading, then picked them up a month or two later for a few pages. Now, where did I leave them…?
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