We Are Losing the Literacy War to the Feed

There is a war going on, and most people do not describe it that way.

It is not a war with a clear front line. It does not announce itself loudly. In fact, much of it looks harmless, even entertaining. It shows up as short videos, infinite scroll, disappearing stories, algorithmic feeds, reactive comments, clickbait headlines, and the steady fragmentation of attention.

But make no mistake: we are losing the literacy war to the feed.

What I mean by that is simple. We are increasingly living in systems designed to reward speed over depth, reaction over reflection, and immediacy over meaning. And while those systems are very good at capturing attention, they are not very good at building the mental habits that reading and writing require.

Reading asks something different of us.

It asks us to stay with an idea for longer than a few seconds. It asks us to imagine, infer, feel, interpret, and question. It asks us to engage with complexity. It asks us to enter another person's world, not just glance at it.

Writing asks even more.

It asks us to organise thought. To grapple with ambiguity. To choose words carefully. To form and refine an idea until it becomes understandable to someone else.

These are not small things. These are foundational skills. They shape how we think, how we communicate, how we empathise, and how we participate in society.

That is why the decline in reading and writing should concern all of us, even if we do not work in publishing, education, or literature.

If young people spend less time reading deeply, what happens to critical thinking? If they spend less time writing, what happens to clarity of thought? If public discourse is increasingly compressed into slogans, outrage, and 10-second clips, what happens to nuance, empathy, and patience?

These are not abstract questions anymore. We are already living with the consequences.

Technology is not the enemy

That does not mean technology is the enemy. Far from it. Technology can open access, build communities, and give creators opportunities that did not exist before. Social media itself has shown that there is still an enormous appetite for stories. BookTok did not emerge by accident. People are still hungry for meaning, identity, emotion, and shared cultural experience.

The real issue is not whether digital life can support literacy. It is whether we are willing to design systems that do.

For years, many of our most powerful digital platforms have been engineered to maximise frequency, not substance. They have become extraordinary machines for distraction, but weak environments for deep engagement. And because they shape behaviour at scale, they also shape culture.

If the dominant logic of the digital world is short, fast, reactive, and endless, then reading and writing start to feel slow, difficult, and peripheral by comparison.

That is a problem.

Because books do something the feed cannot.

A good book does not just entertain. It expands you. It gives you time inside another consciousness. It lets you inhabit difficult questions. It stretches your attention. It connects emotion to meaning. It builds the muscle of staying with something long enough for it to change you.

A feed can trigger a feeling. A story can transform one.

That is why I believe literacy is not just an educational issue. It is a cultural issue. A community issue. A human issue.

And it is why I believe we need to become much more deliberate about building digital environments that support reading, writing, and thoughtful participation rather than simply assuming they will survive on their own.

They will not.

If we want younger audiences to read and write more, we need to meet them where they are — but we also need to offer something better than what they are currently being trained to consume.

That is part of the reason Jotter exists.

Not to fight technology, but to use it differently. Not to reject social participation, but to connect it with stories. Not to complain about the decline in literacy, but to create conditions where reading and writing feel social, alive, and rewarding again.

Because if we keep surrendering the ground of literacy to the feed, we should not be surprised when attention shrinks, empathy weakens, and public conversation becomes thinner.

And if you still believe stories matter — as I do — then we have to build systems that help them matter again.

Thank you.