Headline, August 05 2025/ OPINION : ''' READING SCARCELY RELEVANT '''

OPINION : 

''' READING SCARCELY

 RELEVANT '''

INCREASINGLY - THE VERY ACT OF READING scarcely seems necessary. Platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts offer a bottomless supply of enthralling - short form videos.

These combine with visual memes, fake news, real news, clickbait, sometimes hostile misinformation and, increasingly, a torrent of A.I. generated slop content.

The result is a media environment that seems like the cognitive equivalent of the junk food aisle and is every bit as difficult to resist as those colorful, unhealthy packages.

A classical liberal might retort : Sure, but just as with junk food, it's up to the individual to make  healthy choices.

What this fails to take into account, though, is that just like the negative health impacts of junk food overconsumption, the cognitive harms of digital media will be more pronounced at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale.

We see hints of this already. As Dr. Wolf points out, literacy and poverty have long been correlated.

Now poor kids spend more time on screens each day than rich ones - in one 2019 study, about two hours more per day for U.S. tweens and teens whose families made less than $35,000 per year, compared with peers whose household incomes exceeded $100,000.

Research indicates that kids who are exposed to more than two hours a day to recreational screen time  have worse working memories, processing speed, attention levels, language skills and executive function than kids who are not.

Bluntly : Making healthy cognitive choices is hard. In a culture saturated with more accessible and engrossing forms of entertainment, long-form literacy may soon become the domain of elite subcultures.

ALREADY, elites, religious groups and conservatives are embracing self-imposed limits on tech use. Between 2019 and 2023, over 250 new classical schools, many of them Christian, opened in America, with an ethos centered on long-term '' great books '' for literacy.

New guides and initiatives from this crowd abound, such as the recent book '' The Tech Exit : A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones,'' by Clare Morell, a fellow at a conservative think tank.

It's not just conservatives, Tech notables such as Bill Gates and Evan Spiegel have spoken publicly about curbing their '' kids '' use of screens. Others hire nannies who are required to sign '' no phone '' contracts, or send their kids to Waldorf schools, where such devices are banned or heavily restricted.

The class scissor here is razor-sharp : A majority of classical schools are fee-paying institutions. Shielding your kids from device overuse at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula will set you back $34,000 a year at the elementary grades.

Many U.S. states, including California, are restricting student smartphone use, which in theory ought to level the playing field.

But it is optimistic to assume such rules will be enforced with the same determination in small class private schools, as in massive public schools, let alone in these students' homes.

Even beyond Silicon Valley, some people are limiting digital stimulation [ like social media or video games ] for set periods of time as part of the self improvement practice of dopamine fasting.

The ascetic approach to cognitive fitness is still niche and concentrated among the wealthy. But as new generations reach adulthood having never lived in a world without smartphones, we can expect the culture to stratify even more starkly.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Tech, Education, Students, and Culture, continues. The World Students Society thanks Mary Harrington. She is a contributing editor at UnHerd and the author of '' Feminism Against Progress. ''

With respectful dedication to Parents, Leaders, Tech Giants, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on !WOW! - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless