In what feels like a golden age of technology and constant connectivity, a more subtle, profound shift is taking place beneath the surface of our society: humanity is forgetting how to read deeply.

As smartphones and ubiquitous personal entertainment devices command an increasing share of our waking hours, reading—whether novels, non-fiction, or newspapers—is in a steep, measurable decline. In his new book, The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-literate Society, Times columnist James Marriott explores what this profound societal shift means for how we think, communicate, and govern ourselves.

The Anomaly of Mass Literacy

To understand the gravity of this decline, we must first recognize how unusual literacy is in human history. While spoken language has existed in every human community ever recorded, reading and writing have been invented independently only four times.

For the vast majority of human history, literacy was an incredibly rare skill. In an ancient Mesopotamian city-state, for instance, perhaps only 20 scribes could read or write. It allowed early civilizations to track trade, manage complex social organizations, and record taxes.

Mass literacy—the idea that the general public should be able to read—is an astonishingly recent phenomenon. Sparked first by Gutenberg’s printing press, then by religious movements emphasizing personal study, and finally by 19th-century educational reforms driven by working-class radicals demanding equal political footing, true mass literacy is perhaps only 150 years old. Before that, access to the complex thoughts found in books was heavily restricted to societal elites.

The Screens Rewiring Our Brains

The arrival of television in the mid-20th century marked the first significant dent in reading habits. When post-WWII Americans gained roughly four hours of extra leisure time, nearly all of it went toward watching television.

The invention of the smartphone, however, was an entirely different beast. Designed explicitly to monetize human attention, algorithms keep us endlessly scrolling to serve up sophisticated advertisements. The impact is undeniable. The American Leisure Time Use Survey reveals that average reading time has plummeted by 40% since the beginning of the 21st century.

Worse still, even when we do read on a screen, the way our brains process the information changes. Neuroscience suggests that screen reading is fundamentally different from reading a printed page; our eyes dart, we absorb less, and we engage in a shallower form of processing compared to the “deep reading” associated with physical books. Consequently, reading comprehension scores among 15-year-olds are dropping globally across developed nations.

The Loss of Complex Thought

Why does this matter? Because literacy is not just a method of passing along information; it is a technology that completely alters how humans think.

Constructing a written argument requires organizing thoughts logically, refining them, supplying evidence, and checking for consistency. When you write the history of a nation or lay out a philosophical framework, you are forced into critical analysis. The reader, in turn, engages in a highly active process to interpret those complex passages.

Conversely, oral and video communication rely heavily on emotion. When communicating via spoken word or short-form video (like TikTok), ideas are easily smuggled in through charm, rage, or tears rather than logic. Marriott notes that this highly emotional, high-stakes atmosphere is the perfect breeding ground for irrationality.

A Return to the “New Dark Ages”

As we shift away from text-based logic toward image- and video-based emotion, our political and cultural debates are mutating. Marriott points to the alarming reemergence of deeply irrational, pre-literate themes in modern public discourse—such as popular political commentators discussing demonic attacks or the Antichrist. These concepts thrive in an age where communication bypasses logical scrutiny and goes straight for an emotional reaction.

So, how do we fix it?

The modern push is to encourage “reading for pleasure,” but Marriott argues this isn’t enough to compete with hyper-stimulating video games or algorithms. Instead, the argument for reading must be puritanical: books are the only way to access the deepest, most complex sphere of human knowledge. Without them, we lose the ability to think logically and critically.

Ultimately, we are unlikely to un-invent the smartphone. The fear is that deep reading will revert to what it was for most of history: a luxury reserved for a minority elite who have the time, money, and awareness to pull themselves away from the screen, leaving the rest of society in a post-literate “New Dark Age.”