The journal iScience recently published a study showing that the share of Americans who read books for pleasure has fallen 40 percent over the last 20 years. Unfortunately, this decline has endured for generations. For example, among high school seniors in 1976, 11.5 percent did not read a single book for pleasure; by 2021, this had risen to 41 percent.

It’s a similar situation in Britain. A recent survey revealed that 47 percent of adults do not read books by choice—roughly half the population of England. More worryingly, two-thirds of 16- to 24-year-olds describe themselves as “non-readers” or “lapsed” readers. Fewer children than ever are reading, and the number of those doing so between the ages of 8 and 10 has halved in the last 12 years.

The average American teenager spends 7 and a half hours each day gazing at screen, which accounts for approximately half of their waking lives. Teenagers live in an era of curated existence—a false and inauthentic digital reality, where they recede from experiential reality. A meaningful engagement with the real world is lost when life is mediated through screens.

The internet is not so much changing how we think but chipping away at our ability to think. The University of Southern California’s extensive Understanding America Study, shows that personality traits commonly encountered in academic psychology have changed over the past decade, with the most negative impacts visible among young people. Data published in the Financial Times show that the character traits correlated with positive outcomes—for example, being conscientious and extroverted—are in precipitous decline among those between 16 and 39 years old. Conversely, neuroticism has increased considerably. Within this demographic, the number of individuals who agree with the assertion that they are “easily distracted” has skyrocketed.

The power of thought has been outsourced to Silicon Valley. As we become increasingly enslaved to technology, like prisoners trapped in Plato’s cave, we mistake shadows for reality. Our modern-day puppet masters are the tech elite who shape our behavior with algorithms meant to create echo chambers and promote tribalism. There is no “marketplace of ideas” as we have been taught to understand it. Today, ideas are mediated by dopamine, clicks, and retweets. Audience capture holds content creators captive in accordance with their subscribers’ ideologies. The revolution will not be televised; it will be live-streamed. Democracy is in no danger of being overthrown, but it is being over-entertained.  

Wisdom is not lost, but it is abandoned one distraction at a time. Meaningful engagement with the world seems out of the question when we are in the thrall of an internet driven by the sadistic logic of spectacle, which prioritizes immediacy and emotional impact. As a result, political debates devolve into performative outrages and soundbites, reducing complexity to simplicity. Rather than seeking to develop ourselves, we sit passively, watching our own obsolescence.

Social media, too, becomes something other than merely a means of sharing information. It is more like a hive mind, a collectivized moral system shaming individuals and enforcing norms and behavior—a digital panopticon that polices the boundaries of acceptable discourse. It is a place where self-righteous, emotionally incontinent, vindictive race baiters spew sociological ideological certainties down a drain of moral turpitude.

Thinking on your own is a forgotten skill, a relic of the past. As Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” For those ensnared in the matrix, silence feels unbearable, reflection like punishment and patience is considered a weakness.

It is not just books that we are ignoring, we also ignore each other. Robert Putnam has documented the decline of traditional, civic, religious and social organizations such as labor unions, volunteer Red Cross workers, and fraternal organizations. We’re not just bowling alone, we are alone. Neoliberalism and hyper-individualism have rendered social connection obsolete. It explains why rich westerners are depressed and atomized despite their extensive online “interaction” with others.

According to the American Perspectives Survey, the percentage of Americans without close friends has quadrupled since 1990. Those who do have friends now spend less than three hours per week with them, compared to six hours, which was the common practice a decade ago.

Participating in these kinds of communitarian activities makes us happier, increases social capital, and protects us against loneliness. Simply put, people enjoy doing things with others—not just chatting through the intermediary of a screen.

Friendship is a wonderful thing. However, it is an investment that takes time, as frightening as that may appear to Gen-Z. You are not forced to live vicariously through the admiration of strangers. There are numerous ways to digitally disconnect from the internet. I recommend joining a book club at your local church: it might help you learn while making new friends.