Literacy is in decline, here's how we fix it

Practical ideas for a cultural change.

Have Humans Reached Peak Brain Power?

This column from the FT is doing the rounds on LinkedIn.

Literacy is in decline and it’s hitting teens and adults alike. We peaked in 2012 and went into a tailspin ever since. I think we’re generally not surprised to see these results and - speaking personally - this data dovetails nicely with Stolen Focus (have i mentioned that I’m reading it? Maybe columnist John Burn-Murdoch read it too) discussing the decline in literacy, empathy and attention spans since the growth of Social Media and the Big Tech monopolies in our lives. If your critical thinking and intellect is semi-intact, we don’t have to look too far to find one key culprit: smartphone-first social media. I mean…if the timeline fits, right?

In 2012, the iPhone 5 launched with LTE support and thus connecting us all faster to on-the-go socials, attention-grabbing and shifting our navigation knowledge to reliance on google maps. Sure, we’d had smartphones for a while but until that inflexion…