Consider that at the start of the 20th century, there was no other mass media besides print. Western literacy rates were poking into the 90% range (with some de

Consider that at the start of the 20th century, there was no other mass media besides print. Western literacy rates were poking into the 90% range (with some demographic variation) by sometime around the dawn of America. There's always been more to culture than print (as with any media), of course, and reading culture has never meant universal critical engagement with deeply thoughtful texts. But the place of print between the enlightenment and the rise of broadcast & networked media was huge -- it soaked up the space occupied by all media now. Maybe the new things aren't worse than the old thing, maybe they are. But any picture that doesn't reckon with the fact that things are in fact different now isn't going to be a very accurate one.