One of the great, which is to say terrible, consequences of the massive proliferation of diversions afforded by having the whole internet in your pocket everywhere you go is the absence of the long, unbroken stretches of time that are the sole requirement for reading books.
It’s perfectly likely that we all consume a good deal more writing than we used to. The problem is that it’s broken up into increments of tweets, posts, takes, and, when we’re feeling generous, essays. These are the forms we can ingest in between and during our many other tasks. They can be skimmed, gleaned, interpolated, and deduced from the reactions of our friends and enemies.
They can also be read and considered in full. But they don’t have to be, a fact that privately flummoxes most journalists every bit as much as the shrinking industry or the constantly lowered bar.