James Marriott on The New Dark Ages

Reading built the modern world.

It helped create democracy, science and reason.

Now, books are dying, and people everywhere are losing the ability to read deeply or think rationally.The golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through history is breaking.The screen has replaced the page.

Our free time has been colonised by addictive, infantilising slop.

A culture of distraction is replacing a culture of reasoned debate.As reading declines, thought becomes shallower and culture becomes simpler.

Public life is becoming more emotional, more tribal, more irrational.

We are entering a post-literate society.

And the world we knew is already beginning to disappear.SIX HUNDRED YEARS AFTER THE INVENTION OF THE PRINTED BOOK, IT HAS NEVER BEEN MORE THREATENED OR MORE IRREPLACEABLE.James Marriott is a columnist at _The Times_.

He presented the Radio 4 series _How Reading Made Us_ about the history of literacy and writes the popular Substack newsletter Cultural Capital.

Before joining _The Times_, James worked in the rare book trade.

He was born and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne and studied English Literature at the University of Oxford.