When was the last time you sat down to read a book or dive into a longform article? If it was relatively recently, you might be the exception. As phones tug at our attention and screen time rises, Americans are reading fewer books than ever.
The story doesn’t end there. Some claim that deep literacy isn’t just fading — it’s being replaced by a modern, digital version of a far older form of communication: orality. That shift, critics worry, has affected not just our media diet but our politics, making Americans less equipped to live and vote in a liberal democracy.
But things might not be so simple, cautions Vox’s Eric Levitz. The situation may feel worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s all TikTok’s fault.
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—Angela Chen, senior politics, policy, and ideas editor
