The Minefield In a screen saturated age, is literacy under threat?
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Jan 17, 2024 
Professor Maryanne Wolf discusses the threat to literacy in a screen-saturated age, emphasizing the importance of deep reading for moral understanding. The conversation explores the connection between literacy, knowledge, and morality in literature and pop music, highlighting the transformative power of engaging deeply with texts. The value of being stopped in your tracks by literature and art is emphasized, advocating for intentional reading practices to nurture attention in a digital world.
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Literacy as Moral Encounter
- Literacy is deeply connected to moral presence and the capacity to encounter what is not ourselves.
- Deep reading cultivates attention, patience, and moral engagement beyond mere consumption of text.
Screen Age Erodes Moral Literacy
- Screen age reading habits foster superficiality and conformity in writing and reading.
- This erosion threatens the moral faculty to mean and stand by what we say while attending to others.
Literacy Cultivates Moral Habits
- Literacy requires opening the ego, attention, and patience to encounter complexity and moral nuance.
- Being literate means cultivating these habits, essential to moral life and social cohesion.