We have stopped READING - is it a sign our civilisation is COLLAPSING? | James Marriott

In the past 2 decades literacy rates have dropped dramatically... and so have our IQ scores.
Writer James Marriott believes these two facts are connected. His Substack article, "The dawn of the post-literate society and the end of civilisation," in which he argues that the absence of reading might signify the end of our civilisation, caused a big stir online...
In this conversation we talk about the history of reading, why this immense transfer of knowledge led to the breakdown of feudal society (while making us smarter), but also about how smartphones are fracturing our political systems while robbing us of our most cherished possession - our ability to think.

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#literacy #iq #collapse #society #podcast

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:13 Historically, when did we really start to read?
11:58 Why reading thought us how to think
17:00 The anti-reading revolution of today
26:53 The Instagram-ization of our minds
30:54 Why smartphones are to blame
38:52 Big tech CEO's sending their kids to no-screen schools
41:31 Why they want us hooked on social media
47:07 Implications on politics
54:19 Are we returning to a pre-literate society?
01:00:22 What can we do?