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📚 Is Literacy Really Declining?

'Your inability to focus isn't a moral failing. It's a design problem.' Humans have fretted about declining literacy for centuries — from Thomas More to penny dreadfuls to comic books. Carlo Iacono argues the real issue isn't screens but the environments built around them: notifications, i

Danu Poyner

· 1 minute

Is literacy really declining?
aeon.co

'Your inability to focus isn't a moral failing. It's a design problem.' Humans have fretted about declining literacy for centuries — from Thomas More to penny dreadfuls to comic books. Carlo Iacono argues the real issue isn't screens but the environments built around them: notifications, infinite scroll, algorithmic feeds — and how literacy now moves across text, audio, video and conversation.

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Danu Poyner

Danu is a writer and founder of Grokkist, a learning community in the deepest sense. His work centres on coherence, curiosity, and helping people make sense of themselves in relation to ideas, experience, and one another.

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