How much do we read? I suppose the answer depend on what one means by reading. Much of what we call by that name is barely the same activity. We say we have no time for real reading. But we seem to have plenty of time for snack prose.
Unlike the older forms of prose, which encourage patience and thoughtfulness, snack prose encourages hastiness in thought and expression. It also promotes a higher emotional temperature and lower ideational content. No wonder there are so many insults on Twitter: The median tweet is 34 characters. That’s enough for what is flatteringly termed a “thought,” but not for an argument.
Interestingly, snack prose begins to set the style of prose in general. Smaller bites. Shorter paragraphs. Gnomic sentences.
Just look at the ones in this post.
At the personal level, there is a solution, for anyone who cares enough to implement it: Read more.
And turn all that other junk off.