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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers brings together two leading voices on the decline of reading and the future of literacy: Times columnist and cultural critic, James Marriott, and YouTuber and philosopher, Jared Henderson.
Marriott has written extensively about what he calls the dawn of a “post-literate society.” For him, the slow death of English literature and the retreat from serious reading mark a cultural crisis, with far-reaching consequences for politics, education, and civic life. He argues that without books and deep reading, society risks becoming shallow, distracted, and dangerously unserious.
Henderson agrees and sees the problem through a different lens. On his YouTube channel he has chronicled the “male reading crisis” in American colleges, showing how boys and young men are abandoning reading altogether. But rather than mourning literature’s decline, he focuses on practical ways to reignite reading habits, from choosing the right books to rebuilding attention in an age of screens.
In this discussion, Freddie Sayers asks: Is literacy truly collapsing, or simply evolving into new forms? As AI, smartphones and digital media reshape our minds, is the future of reading one of decline — or reinvention?
Effing brilliant , and Freddie is outstanding.
(PS I have never had a smartphone or been on any social media, so I feel smug as all hell get out. Although by rights my IQ should be astronomical but sadly it is not)
Social media can be very useful: I and some of my friends here and ‘overseas’ have Facebook pages and mainly what we put on them is what we’re reading. We’re mostly retired academics and librarians and sometimes mention recent travels, life events, current affairs, but it’s what we’re reading that interests us.
I’m a luddite and have only recently started to take my ‘phone with me when I go out – in case the car breaks down or some such. But whereas I once took a book with me if I were meeting a friend for a coffee, now that I have the ‘phone in my pocket I don’t need a cumbersome book. While I’m waiting. I just logon to the local newspaper and check the obituaries – always the most interesting thing to we baby boomers.
Well, there are only so many hours in the day and I guess going to the gym, and other expensive hobbies, has crowded out reading time. Reading costs nothing if you borrow from public libraries, but it won’t improve your appearance.
And respect for knowledge has almost gone – I liked the videos where young people in pro-Palestine demos, carrying From the River to the Sea banners, were asked: ‘which river, which sea?’ and had no idea. And no shame.
Books (before there were paperbacks) were not cheap, so fewer books were published and the quality was much higher. Now there are zillions of cheap books and, naturally, a lot of them are rubbish. If I had picked up one or two of them to read, I probably wouldn’t pick up another book. So, aren’t our schools giving students unforgettably great books to read? Because if you’ve had a great experience with a book, you will look for more.
BTW I will say that the book I just finished (The Scapegoat, by Lucy Hughes-Hallett), is a fantastic read.
I rediscovered the joy of reading books during the pandemic, but I found that my preference had switched to non-fiction. I was acutely aware of the shallowness and uniformity of the viewpoints being expressed through the media, and realised that I risked becoming increasingly ill-informed (I was an intuitive lockdown sceptic, and the TINA argument cut no ice for me).
I am alarmed at seeing my close friends’ seeming inability to see through the biased reportage and soundbites, and their apparent lack of curiosity about the truth.
The decline in reading, and its consequent negative effect on literacy, really are softening us all up for a post-democratic world. We are in danger of stumbling into it, smart phones in hand.
I always read fiction / non-fiction / fiction / non-fiction in order that I keep learning things about the world, but also about the human heart. The Scapegoat was a very readable account of the lead up to the English civil war. But following that, I’m reading the new novel from Niall Williams, who has all the Irish genius for words and stories. You need facts, but you also need the sublime, and Niall Williams will give it to you.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Another troubling aspect to the huge migration from reading is that these hyper electronic media consumers actually think they are better informed by that habit. In fact, the more information one gets from snippet pop media these days, the more misinformed one becomes. Lots of numskulls read nothing but a headline from a web page of news stories… and consider themselves informed. I am retired now, but during my early prime work years in the 90s, I read a book a week because if I didn’t, I considered myself uninformed. Around that time I also began taking regular university extension courses that required reading and tests of comprehension.