That Daily Brain Rot Break Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages

Literacy is declining sharply across the West. In the era of vertical video, who has the time or concentration to read a long article — let alone a whole book? As we lose the ability to read long-form text, we might also be losing the capacity for democratic deliberation and self-governance. That’s the argument this week’s guest, the Times of London columnist James Marriott, makes in his recent book, “The New Dark Ages.” He sits down with guest host Mary Harrington to discuss our return to oral culture, the political consequences and what we can learn from the medieval era about storing information in a digital world. Note: As we work on relaunching “Interesting Times,” the show will feature a series of guest hosts in the coming months. 00:00 Intro 00:52 What Is Post-Literacy 02:05 The Data Behind the Decline 05:21 The Shift Toward Video 09:44 Why Reading Is Hard 10:45 Walter Ong on Oral vs. Literate Cultures 14:27 Tribal Politics and Emotion 18:21 The Reading Revolution 21:14 Literacy as an Engine for Democracy 25:15 Medieval Literary Culture 27:27 What We Can Learn the Medieval Era 30:13 Remembering Everything and Nothing 33:49 How Bukele Communicates Visually 37:04 Monarchy vs. Dictatorship 41:38 Is Postliteracy a Right-Wing Phenomenon? 43:29 Can We Resist the Slide? 46:33 Closing (A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.) Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.