## Metadata - Author: [[Carlo Iacono]] - Full Title:: Books and Screens - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://aeon.co/essays/what-we-think-is-a-decline-in-literacy-is-a-design-problem?utm_source=rss-feed - Read date:: [[2026-02-22]] ## Highlights > walk backwards through history, and the pattern repeats with eerie precision. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, novel-reading itself was the existential threat. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kj32e2kpwz0zksvn6jc7gz3b)) > Amy Orben, a psychologist studying technology panics, [identifies](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32603635/) the ‘Sisyphean cycle’: each generation fears new media will corrupt youth; politicians exploit these fears while deflecting from systemic issues like inequality and educational underfunding; research begins too late; ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kj32g7ajvfgg2wgvjr3eg5gs)) > The pattern I observe repeatedly: people who ‘can’t focus’ on traditional texts can maintain extraordinary concentration when working across modes. They struggle with philosophy textbooks but thrive when they can listen to lectures while taking visual notes, discuss ideas in study groups, and write while pacing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kj32jch0nbfwzb7sdxr4tz8r)) > We haven’t become post-literate. We’ve become post-monomodal. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kj32jp3zfavdzr0wq5adn6fz))