proper bostonian

Acknowledges that if children and college students are struggling with reading comprehension, this is an outcome propelled by societal changes that are not their fault (balanced reading pedagogies, the ubiquity of screens, children having to stare at a laptop for 7 hours a day during COVID lockdown, the effects that COVID itself might have had on students' brains)

Examines the changes in adult reading habits in as much depth as child reading habits

Does not seek to make grave pronouncements about liberal society based on claims about literacy—or, at least, backs such pronouncements up with arguments stronger than "these two things happened to occur at the same time"

Acknowledges that text can lie, and that rhetoric, as old as language, was used to inflame, mislead, and bamboozle people centuries before inflammatory TikToks

Does not cite Amusing Ourselves to Death, a book which I had to stop reading because Postman made no real arguments in it after a certain point