I used to think the same way, that people have always overreacted to new technology.

But over time I’ve started to feel there’s at least a bit of truth to some of those moral panics, and it's not correct to dismiss all. I remember laughing at an old article about “calcu-holism,” basically the idea of becoming too dependent on calculators. At the time it sounded ridiculous, but looking back, the point wasn’t that bad. Reaching for a calculator to do basic math is a silly habit, a sign of extreme mental laziness. And it's inefficient too.

I’ve noticed something similar in myself with attention. I remember reading The Power Broker, a 1,000+ pages tome, in under a month. Now I struggle to finish books that are a fraction of that length. And if it feels this way for me, I can only imagine what it’s like for teenagers who’ve grown up with smartphones their entire lives. Possibly, being completely engrossed in a book would be an alien experience to them.

> Hm, comparing developments spanning from the 12th century up to now with stuff that is happening in the last decade. Just give social media about 5 or 6 centuries to develop, and then check back to see if the arguments of this article are sound.

For most of time, until the industrial revolution, technology didn't really advance that quickly. The world you were born into would be technologically near identical to the one you died in.

Technology is now advancing at such a rate that most if not all of humanity is in a permanent state of future shock, and it's only going to get worse. Nobody really seems to have a clue how to deal with that.

It will be kind of surprising if neither global warming nor AI nor nuclear weapons knocks us back to a pre-industrial society in the next 200 years.

If there were stupid people back then and there are still stupid people now, wouldn't the interesting thing be to look at what's different?

The history of Opium is likely more relevant.

Like I said in another comment, this famous article by the Atlantic [1] has pretty convincing testimony that kids studying the humanities at elite universities can't read either.

I agree with the sentiment that we tend to misrepresent the culture of mass societies, as if at one point in time there were droves of people reading Aristotle. But the ability to read and our transition to an oral or post-literate culture is very much affecting elites too. There is pretty good evidence when you compare contemporary histories. Or if you live in a bourgeois milieu, you just need to ask around.

I don't think that reading necessarily makes you a better person. I've met a good amount of people of the highest moral dignity who do not read. But on the whole, reading helps build competence - moral and technical - and create a sense of shared culture. Going back to an "oral culture" is nothing but a regression.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-eli...

It is slightly dismissive, since we see degradation of literacy within the past 20 years.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-repo...

We also know from colleges and schools that students coming in are having difficulty doing the reading needed for classes, even in literature classes.

AI is making this worse, since it’s unleashed an epidemic of cheating and the tool itself is inimical to learning. (Learning is friction. The tool to remove friction also removes learning)

The issue isn’t that we have stupid people then and now. The issue is that trends of literacy and development now are changing direction.

I just can't agree with this. Social media has a noticeable, damaging effect on those who consume it constantly.

If you haven't had the distinct displeasure of being around an iPad kid, I envy you.

There's anecdote that aligns with experience, that aligns with studies. And frankly, it seems silly to me that we need science to empirically prove something we can all witness with our own brains. That said, whichever method you submit to: they all bear witness to the same conclusion:

Social media (especially the brainless forms like TikTok) is incredibly damaging.

> There are still stupid people now.

Some even equate attention discipline to intelligence of all things.

I agree with you and could say the same thing about 90s/00s TV as he does with YouTube.

"Celeb takes a bath in baked beans for charity"