Why Johnny Still Can't Write

Responding to an UnHerd pod and the problem of falling literacy rates

This essay originally appeared in Mind Matters, the online publication I write for focused on AI, technology, and culture written from a perspective that values human creativity and uniqueness.

In 1975, Newsweek ran a front-page feature article called "Why Johnny Can't Write." It's a 4,000-word essay about television, education, and children's declining literacy rates. That was fifty years ago, and many people today might dismiss the piece as needlessly alarmist. Even back then, critics noticed the incoming tide of screens and debated over how watching images on a screen might change the way we think, communicate with each other, and, yes, read. Were the worries legitimate? And what might those people think about our current social moment when screens are not limited to homes but exist in our pockets?

A new video podcast, hosted by UnHerd, features philosopher Jared Henderson and Times critic James Marriott and centers on the question of whether we're heading toward a "post-literate society." Both men cite alarming decline in literacy rates, connecting the trend to technological shifts and the educational COVID slump, which young people across the country are still struggling to get over.

They also expressed doubts over social media's ability to sustain healthy social discourse. Literacy, they remark, upholds democracy. If our kids are struggling to read and write, they may struggle to flourish in the economy or even understand how to communicate charitably and rationally with others.

Marriott notes how people are struggling these days to read older works from the likes of Dickens, Shakespeare, and other revered voices in the Western canon. Henderson also makes an interesting point about how ancient oral cultures, where stories and history were passed down through the spoken word, still prioritized memorization. That's how the culture was preserved over time. Despite the influx of content, today's media consumer isn't encouraged to memorize or internalize great poetry or write down notes when listening to a podcast. A post-literate culture, then, at least in our context, doesn't necessarily entail a return to an oral culture, where the values and traditions of civilization depend on memory and storytelling.

All Doom and Gloom?

The 1975 article reminds us that people have long worried about new forms of media and debated their implications. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that their worries weren't merited. One can argue that television steered our culture further away from literacy and general critical thinking skills. "Perhaps, though," says the hypothetical technology embracer, "that might not be such a bad thing. While people might not be achieving literacy of the written word, maybe they're learning a new form of digital literacy, which is no less valuable."

It's probably true that being savvy with digital media in this day and age is valuable, but the seasoned composition teachers among us may want to remind us of a long-abiding truth: To write is to think.

So, what can we do? Both Marriott and Henderson aren't comfortable with banning social media in fear of creating a precedent for government overreach. Social media platforms are venues of speech, and it's not the government's role to shut them down. Aside an outright ban, however, social media companies could be much stricter about the age limit feature. Just like we don't let twelve-year-olds smoke cigarettes, so societies should make it illegal for kids under sixteen to create social media accounts. Is that censorship or prudential governance?

Whatever one's opinions regarding solutions for declining literacy rates, people can always start to brew change in their own lives and communities. Cultural critic Ted Gioia remains a champion of reading and writing in his latest Substack essay, "The Glorious Future of the Book." Despite recurring fears of the book's survivability in the digital age, it remains a proven "data center." Gioia calls attention to the many energy-sucking data centers currently being built around the country. They're expensive, demolish local culture, and require astronomical levels of electricity to sustain. In lieu of this, Gioia gives us a picture of his bookshelf, writing,

At this same moment in history, I hear experts still predicting the end of the book. At first glance, these warnings sound plausible. It’s true that reading for pleasure has declined. Brain rot from screens is on the rise.

But that hardly matters.

We will soon need to read books for protection. We will need them for survival. We will seek them out because they offer an escape from the degraded digital domains, where duplicity is now dictated by the largest platforms with the richest owners.

Things might get uglier, but the pressure might just push us back to time-tested vehicles of cultural transmission. I'm reminded of the ending of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, when the protagonist, Guy Montag, meets a band of travelers after escaping nuclear annihilation. None of these people have physical books with them, but they're able to recite whole passages from literature, including the Bible. These characters exemplify one of the end goals of reading good books in the first place: To let great stories, along with deep and lasting truth, to enter the soul and reside there, helping to form the whole person for good. Holding onto those stories means holding onto to who we are as a culture and as individual people.