The Postliterate Age: Everyone Is Reading, No One Reads Long Texts Anymore
The share of Americans who read a book or an article on a given day has fallen 40% in twenty years; more alarming than a literacy crisis is the postliterate age — abstract reasoning, education and political communication are exiting along with long-form reading.
The video won't play here. Listen to the audio instead:
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
We read more than ever, but can't get through long texts
Rose distinguishes the literacy crisis from postliteracy: a literacy crisis is a breakdown in fundamentals like decoding words and understanding short sentences, whereas postliteracy is text no longer serving as the primary channel for information, news, entertainment and cultural connection. The problem, she says, is not that people "can't read," but that they read so many short fragments every day that the time once reserved for long, complex texts is squeezed out; retirees, college graduates and women — historically the groups that read the most — are collapsing at the same rate.
— Rose HorowitchLinear argument is not innate; literacy gave it to us
In Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong records Soviet researchers' tests on Uzbek peasants: literate peasants could answer the syllogism about what color polar bears are, while illiterate peasants refused to reason on the grounds that "I have never been to the North." Rose notes these experiments have not always replicated since, but Ong's larger judgment holds: literate cultures value linear argument with evidence and rebuttal, and that way of thinking does not exist naturally in purely oral societies.
— Rose HorowitchReading rates fell for twenty years, and reasoning fell with them
The mechanism cognitive science offers is that the brain gets good at whatever you practice over time. The less you read, the less background knowledge you have, the lower your tolerance for long texts, and the more difficult and unpleasant reading feels. Rose cites research showing that American adults' ability to solve logic puzzles, analyze patterns and reason has declined over the past twenty years alongside reading rates — the brain is simply adapting to what we no longer ask it to do.
— Rose HorowitchSchools are personally accelerating the exit of long reading
On the education side, surveys of middle and high school teachers show only 0 to 4 books assigned per year, with classrooms increasingly using short informational excerpts to prepare for standardized tests; 80% of elementary school teachers say students receive a school-issued tablet or Chromebook before they even start kindergarten. The effect carries into university: professors have to teach students how to read, how to recognize irony and metaphor, before they can teach content. Schools are both responding to the trend and personally accelerating the exit of long-form reading.
— Rose HorowitchTrump will not be the last postliterate president
Rose says Trump is the first postliterate president: he speaks and contradicts himself as if there were no historical record, leans heavily on repetition and emotional language, and introduces people with fixed epithets like "Sleepy Joe" and "Crooked Hillary" that are nearly Homeric. Media theorists long predicted such a figure would appear — short video and social media algorithms reward simple, inflammatory, memorable expression — so Trump will not be the last.
— Rose HorowitchThe brain isn't broken, and attention can be trained back
Neuroscientists told Rose there is no permanent change or damage to the brain; if you want to, you can still retrain sustained focus. She offers one concrete sample: after the Dallas, Texas school district banned phones on campus, library checkouts were 200,000 books higher than the year before the ban. She also notes that paper books make it easier to reread and remember than ordinary digital devices, because readers have a spatial sense of "which page the content is on."
— Rose HorowitchSocrates feared writing would destroy memory, and he was right
Facing the objection that every new technology provokes panic, Rose responds with Plato's Phaedrus: Socrates worried that writing would destroy memory, making people "think they know" without truly internalizing anything. Her rereading is this: later generations often use this example to prove the worry was overblown, but looking back, Socrates and Plato were right — no one today can recite the Iliad or the Odyssey from memory. Still, literacy and writing remain worthwhile, and new media have real benefits; the key is being clear about the trade-offs.
— Rose HorowitchIn their own words · checked verbatim
he said most described reading for pleasure as an alien practice
Rose Horowitch4:12
we know that two decades ago, the average attention span on a screen was two and a half minutes. And five years ago, it was 47 seconds.
Rose Horowitch8:32
that wasn't their personal experience. And so they couldn't, they couldn't answer. They refused to try.
Rose Horowitch10:00
Donald Trump is the first postliterate president.
Rose Horowitch30:00
People now.Choose their politicians much more through dating criteria.
Rose Horowitch32:18
there's nothing that's permanently like changed or damaged in our brains at all.
Rose Horowitch42:24
Plato was right. Socrates was right
Rose Horowitch45:00
Figures
| Average screen attention span (twenty years ago) | 2.5 minutes | 8:32 |
| Average screen attention span (five years ago) | 47 seconds | 8:32 |
| Books assigned per year by middle and high school teachers | 0-4 | 19:59 |
| Share of elementary teachers reporting students get school devices before kindergarten | 80% | 19:59 |
Glossary
- postliterate
- A media-theory term: a society still surrounded by text, but in which long-form reading is no longer the primary vehicle for information and ideas.
- secondary orality
- Walter Ong's term: oral-culture traits reproduced through radio, television and the internet, while literacy remains the underlying substrate.
- syllogism
- Deductive reasoning in which two premises necessarily yield a conclusion, as in "all polar bears are white."
- epithet
- An epic-style fixed label, such as "Sleepy Joe," built for memorability and repetition.
How to listen
Founders and product managers in content, education and political communication: this episode makes clear what you are using to replace long-form reading; investors can reassess the scarcity of attention.
The ads at 40:00–42:24 and the subscription pitch after 55:00 can be skipped; the rest is worth hearing.