How AI and smartphones are accelerating the death of books
- Source
- The Atlantic
- Time
- 1:05 AM
- Weight
- 94/100
The rise of smartphones and generative artificial intelligence is signaling a shift away from a culture centered on reading and toward a "post-literate" age. While universal literacy was once viewed as an inevitable goal for human development, recent trends suggest that the period of widespread book consumption may have been a historical anomaly.
Modern digital platforms have replaced the deep engagement required by long-form texts with more immediate, fragmented forms of media consumption. This transition mirrors the decline of the Library of Alexandria, which historians now believe was lost not only to fire and war but also to gradual negligence.