The generational collapse in literacy is measurable, persistent, and likely to get worse.
this is making me panic how do we raise children in this educational & tech environment
“In July 2025, the journalist Mary Harrington argued in The New York Times that “thinking is becoming a luxury good.” The ability to read deeply and reason at length is fragmenting along class lines as ultra-processed digital media replaces text in everyday life, much as ultra-processed food has replaced cooking. Her longer treatment of the subject in First Things makes the more provocative case that we are witnessing the end of print culture itself, and with it the end of the cognitive substrate on which modern liberal democracy was built.
I see this stratification in the classroom and on the page every week. My students from districts that protected sustained reading through small class sizes, strict phone policies, and faculty who refused to teach to the test all arrive with their attention relatively intact. My students from districts that surrendered to devices and standardized testing arrive cognitively winded. A democracy that requires a literate electorate is now training one fraction of that electorate out of literacy while marketing to the other a “deep work” lifestyle as a luxury good. The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.”
also I have been banging this particular drum to friends for a while now… the rich kids are going to get low-tech educations that prioritize critical thinking and deep engagement. the poorer kids are going to get “career readiness” training that urges them to use AI for everything and to give up on the hard work of sustained engagement with ideas
