James Marriott's 'The New Dark Ages' warns of collapsing literacy and attention spans
Times columnist James Marriott has expanded his viral essay on declining reading habits into a new book, 'The New Dark Ages,' published this week. The reviewer, a fellow journalist and friend of Marriott's, describes it as an entertaining but troubling 50,000-word argument about how digital media, especially YouTube, is reshaping childhood attention and literacy for the worse.