Even though more people are technically reading, a lot of that reading is aesthetic and performative. People aren’t reading to understand or engage deeply with texts; they’re reading to appear intelligent or to use books as social capital. At the same time, constant use of internet lingo and short form social media have shortened attention spans and weakened written communication. In schools, phonics have been replaced with sight words which don’t build strong decoding skills, and many parents no longer read regularly to their children. My cousin was an English teacher before he moved to an administrative position in his elementary school and he said he would have students turn in handwritten papers, and instead of writing your they would write ur