“Dozens of states sue Meta over social media ‘profoundly altered’ mental, social realities of American youth,” reads a recent Fox Business headline. The lawsuit claims Meta markets harmful content to kids and schemes to bypass parental consent. It also seeks compensation for the damage Meta has done.
This is not just good but very good, and not only for teens who’ve been sucked into social media and become obsessives. The United States at large is at risk. Step back for a moment and consider the opportunity costs of a generation of younger Americans glued to little screens. A healthy modern society can’t let that happen.
It needs a thriving culture of reading; that’s a longstanding premise, from the time newspapers and pamphlets were instrumental in rallying dispersed colonists in the 1760s to reject the Stamp Act. A system of representative government presumes an informed populace, and even in the digitized 21st century, the most reliable information comes through the printed word.
Here’s the bad news: Printed words are ever less important to an increasing number of Americans. Reading is a diminishing habit. The survey data is clear.
According to a National Endowment for the Arts survey, barely half of American adults (52.7 percent) read a book in a year’s time for their own pleasure or edification (not for work or school). For the 18- to 24-year-old group, the rate falls to 47 percent.
Information on younger Americans shows the same trend at work. A few months ago, the U.S. Department of Education
