Jake Tapper's Biden Book Is Collapsing

[thucythucy]

19. I didn't say Trump caused the decline in literacy,

which indeed has been a trend over decades. I said his rise was only possible among an electorate that is substantially less literate. Re-read my post and I'm sure you'll see the difference.

"Digital reading" may make up for some of this deficit, but it doesn't come close to filling the gap that has been, as you say, widening for years.

We now live in a world where on-line material often comes with a tag that tells you how long it will take to read a particular item. This is part of a trend that sees the attention span of the general public declining, year by year, another aspect related to declining literacy.

"Digital reading" also makes it far more possible to manipulate the material being read. There's a reason why the right is making a concerted effort to purge websites of material on minority history, racism, climate change, etc. Combine this with right wingers attempting to purge public libraries of books they find objectionable and we can see, in real time, the attempt to re-write our history and gut the public discourse of the material needed for an informed electorate.

This has happened before of course, the public book burnings in Germany in the 1930s being a prime example. But a public more and more relying on information in digital format is a public more easily manipulated by the owners of that technology. Look at what's happened to Twitter and Facebook. Millions of posts gone with just the press of a button.