Gutenberg’s printing press transformed the world. Literacy shaped education and culture and knowledge was democratised. Centuries later, Zuckerberg’s digital networks have connected billions and made information more accessible than ever before. But beneath this triumph of access lies a crisis of thought. Reading is in free fall: the National Literacy Trust reports that fewer young people enjoy reading today than at any point in the past twenty years, and OECD data show literacy stagnating across the developed world. As our attention migrates from books to screens, rhetoric begins to eclipse reason.
Do digital media and interactive technologies represent a new frontier, giving a voice to billions who would once go unheard? Or are we witnessing the slow unravelling of the habits of mind that made rational discourse possible? And if the literate mind once shaped the modern world, what kind of world will the post-literate mind create?
