I feel this so much now I have joined a (non-fiction) book club with friends I have a lot in common with, meaning we exclusively pick books we all find interesting. And yet my 'did not finish' books pile up as I simply no longer have the mental stamina.
James Donaldson has just written a novel with James Patterson, which he promoted with the following horrific tweet "Growing up I thought books were boring, in reality I just didn’t read anything that actually interested me. Which is why I teamed up with James Patterson to write The Most Dangerous Games! For many people this might be the first book they actually read (and hopefully enjoy haha) give it a read and tell me what you think :D"
It makes sense that when the printed word's hold on meaning is reduced, the need to read in order to understand what is happening in society is also reduced. Which implies that the rot started with radio, not television.
I was born in the early 1950s and experienced pressures which I believe operated across society but independently of the reach of media. There were the first attacks on elitism and educational excellence typified by the closure of grammar schools. I lived through a period where the quality of education was reduced - a trend which has continued and even accelerated ever since.
You mention pop culture. The Beatles didn't start the great dumbing down, but in retrospect, they were its Pied Pipers.
"As our attention spans have declined, ‘statistical analysis shows that even pop songs are becoming simpler and more repetitive’, while television dialogue has become less complex, all subtext or insinuation gone as characters spell out the plot to attention-depleted audiences."
I'm not sure if you have seen this article "The Age of Average" from a few years ago now on how aesthetics and art everywhere seem to be becoming streamlined:
And unfortunately, the reading/TV watching gap seems to have become more pronounced among conservatives:
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1938092561715105892
I feel this so much now I have joined a (non-fiction) book club with friends I have a lot in common with, meaning we exclusively pick books we all find interesting. And yet my 'did not finish' books pile up as I simply no longer have the mental stamina.
James Donaldson has just written a novel with James Patterson, which he promoted with the following horrific tweet "Growing up I thought books were boring, in reality I just didn’t read anything that actually interested me. Which is why I teamed up with James Patterson to write The Most Dangerous Games! For many people this might be the first book they actually read (and hopefully enjoy haha) give it a read and tell me what you think :D"
It makes sense that when the printed word's hold on meaning is reduced, the need to read in order to understand what is happening in society is also reduced. Which implies that the rot started with radio, not television.
I was born in the early 1950s and experienced pressures which I believe operated across society but independently of the reach of media. There were the first attacks on elitism and educational excellence typified by the closure of grammar schools. I lived through a period where the quality of education was reduced - a trend which has continued and even accelerated ever since.
You mention pop culture. The Beatles didn't start the great dumbing down, but in retrospect, they were its Pied Pipers.
"As our attention spans have declined, ‘statistical analysis shows that even pop songs are becoming simpler and more repetitive’, while television dialogue has become less complex, all subtext or insinuation gone as characters spell out the plot to attention-depleted audiences."
I'm not sure if you have seen this article "The Age of Average" from a few years ago now on how aesthetics and art everywhere seem to be becoming streamlined:
https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average