Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.
Text is king read on, queen
Experimental History – “The hot new theoryonline is that reading is kaput, and therefore civilization is too. The rise of hyper-addictive digital technologies has shattered our attention spans and extinguished our taste for text.
Books are disappearing from our culture, and so are our capacities for complex and rational thought. We are careening toward a post-literate society, where myth, intuition, and emotion replace logic, evidence, and science. Nobody needs to bomb us back to the Stone Age; we have decided to walk there ourselves. I am skeptical of this thesis.
I used to study claims like these for a living, so I know that the mind is primed to believe narratives of decline. We have a much lower standard of evidence for “bad thing go up” than we do for “bad thing go down”. Unsurprisingly, then, stories about the end of reading tend to leave out some inconvenient data points.
For example, book sales were higher in 2025 than they were in 2019, and only a bit below their high point in the pandemic. Independentbookstores are booming, not busting; 422 new indie shops opened last year alone.
Even Barnes and Noble is cool again. The actual data on reading isn’t as apocalyptic as the headlines imply.
Gallup surveys suggest that some mega-readers (11+ books per year) have become moderate readers (1-5 books per year), but they don’t find any other major trends over the past three decades…But if you look closely at the reading time data, you’ll notice that the dip between 2003 and 2011 is about twice the size of the dip between 2011 and 2023. In fact, the only meaningful changes happen in 2009 and 2015.
I’d say we have two effects here: a larger internet effect and a smaller smartphone effect, neither of which is huge. If the data is right, the best anti-reading intervention is not a 5G-enabled iPhone circa 2023, but a broadband-enabled iMac circa 2009…”
6 signs your computer has been compromised and how to check right now
MakeUseOf: “Your computer, whether it’s Windows-based or a Mac, is meant to be a well-oiled machine, whether it’s fresh out of the box or has logged hundreds of days of use. When it suddenly freezes, slows, or behaves as if it has a mind of its own, it’s easy to brush it off as wear and tear. But sometimes, those little quirks are more than just technical hiccups — they can be warning signs of a hidden infiltrator: one of the many kinds of malware. Below are six telltale signs your device may be compromised, along with simple ways to confirm them, so you can take back control of your computer’s health and security…”
From the collection of the Met, an Egyptian artist’s sketch of a sparrow circa 1479–1458 BCE. Much of the art that filters down to us from ancient civilizations was used for official purposes (state, religion, commerce); it’s nice to see something simpler like this drawing. Archaeologist Alison Fisk:
This may have been a practice drawing of the sparrow hieroglyph which was used for words meaning ‘small’, ‘poor’, or ‘bad’
The Egyptian artisans who decorated tombs and temples, drew sketches and jotted down notes on the plentiful limestone flakes which were by-products of temple and rock-cut tomb construction. Egyptologists refer to them as ‘ostraca’ (singular: ostracon). More info: ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ostracon/
From that link about ostracon:
The word “ostracon” is derived from the Greek “ostrakon” (meaning a piece of pottery used as a voting ballot). When a vote was held on whether to banish a person from society these shards were used to cast votes. This is the origin of the word “ostracism” (literally meaning “to be voted out”).
