Is This the End of Reading as a Societal Activity?

I think we are seeing the end of reading as a societal activity. Most younger people and many older people no longer read much at all. The new media is highly visual and auditory---short clips, podcasts, TV, etc.

But that does not mean key groups of people will still read. But I suspect it will be a reading subset of the population who value ideas, intellectual work, etc.

When I say "read," I do not mean the ability to discern the sounds of the alphabet on the page. I grant that people will use social media to read in this way.

I am talking about sitting down for two hours to read an argument from beginning to end. Maybe much of this will simply shift to podcasts and YouTube. But given the tendency to go to short-form media like TikTok, I doubt it.

I am not a prophet, but I suspect (and cannot know) that we will become or already are a non-literary society. And that a sub-group (pastors, classical school kids, educators, etc.) will continue to value the life of the mind.

Fair enough. I think that's a more traditional model. And I guess it's just fine.

I do wonder, however, what that might mean for personal Bible reading. I recently told someone to sit down on Saturday for five-hours to read the Pentateuch straight through. I am pretty sure it was shocking and felt impossible. But really, it's not. It's easy in a sense---you just read.

But how many of us do that? Increasingly, I doubt people will make that commitment, not because they don't desire to know the Bible, but simply because it seems outside the norms and structures of what's possible.

And again, maybe that's just fine. Most people in history heard the Bible read at church or in morning and evening prayer. And maybe a renewed commitment to the public reading of Scripture will be what we need.

I don't reflect here to be doom and gloom. I think society and the church will press on in the Technological Society that we have structured. And we will adapt, losing parts of our past and gaining something from our future.