Post-literate society

{{Short description|Society in which literacy is uncommon due to technological advances}}

{{More footnotes|date=August 2010}} A '''post-literate society''' is a previously literate society in which people no longer read, write, or correspond, instead preferring to consume new forms of [[multimedia]].

== Background == The term appears as early as 1962 in [[Marshall McLuhan]]'s ''[[The Gutenberg Galaxy]]'', albeit referring to the current society, in which literacy is ubiquitous.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Gutenberg galaxy : the making of typographic man|first=Marshall|last=McLuhan|date=2014|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=9781442612693|oclc=993539009|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781442612693}}</ref>

It differs from the reading revolution<ref>{{Cite web |title=I want more! The revolution in reading in the eighteenth century |url=https://www.habsburger.net/en/chapter/i-want-more-revolution-reading-eighteenth-century |access-date=2026-04-10 |website=Die Welt der Habsburger |language=en}}</ref> of the 18th century as defined by Rolf Engelsing<ref>{{Cite book |last=Engelsing |first=Rolf |url=http://archive.org/details/derburgeralslese0000enge |title=Der Bürger als Leser : Lesergeschichte in Deutschland 1500-1800 |date=1974 |publisher=Stuttgart : Metzler |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-3-476-00287-7}}</ref> as it refers to the contemporary decline in the 21st century. <ref>{{Cite web |date=22 August 2025 |title=The lamentable decline of reading |url=https://www.ft.com/content/583de986-a295-4697-a2fe-3c6b13c99145?syn-25a6b1a6=1 |url-status=live |website=The Financial Times}}</ref>

Its contemporary usage was referred to by the journalist and writer, James Marriott. <ref>{{Cite web |last=Marriott |first=James |date=2025-09-19 |title=The dawn of the post-literate society |url=https://jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-the-post-literate-society-aa1 |access-date=2026-04-10 |website=Cultural Capital}}</ref> He was also interviewed on the BBC World Service as part of the Global Story.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Global Story - The death of reading - BBC Sounds |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct71cy |access-date=2026-04-10 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}}</ref>

A post-literate society would differ from contemporary or historical oral cultures, which do not deploy writing systems and whose aesthetic traditions take the form of [[oral literature]] and [[oral tradition|oral history]], aided by art, dance, and singing.

A post-literate society would have replaced the written word with recorded sounds ([[Compact Disc|CD]]s, [[audiobook]]s), broadcast spoken word and music ([[radio]]), pictures ([[JPEG]]) and moving images ([[television]], [[film]], [[MPEG-1|MPG]], [[streaming video]], [[video game]]s, [[virtual reality]]). A post-literate society might still include people who are [[Aliteracy|aliterate]], who know how to read and write but choose not to. Most if not all people would be [[Media literacy|media literate]], multimedia literate, [[Visual literacy|visually literate]], and [[Transliteracy|transliterate]].

== Books == While a post-literate society is often invoked in the sci-fi genre, the idea of a post-literate society is an issue of philosophical relevance as well, in regards to McLuhan's work and his Global Carnival Theory.

In science-fiction societies are post-literate due to their anti-democratic nature, as in [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'', [[Dan Simmons]]' novel ''[[Ilium (novel)|Ilium]]'', and [[Gary Shteyngart]]'s ''[[Super Sad True Love Story]]''.

The nonfiction books ''[[Amusing Ourselves to Death]]'' by [[Neil Postman]] and ''[[Empire of Illusion]]'' by [[Chris Hedges]] both observe a sudden rise of post-literate culture.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Empire of illusion : the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle|first=Chris|last=Hedges|date=2009|publisher=Nation Books|isbn=9781568584379|location=New York|oclc=301887642|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/empireofillusion0000hedg}}</ref>

==See also== *[[Asemic writing]] *[[Cyberculture]] *[[Daniel Bell]] *[[Pivot to video]] *[[Post-industrial society]]

==References== ===Footnotes=== {{reflist}}

===Bibliography=== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20101202002011/http://www.wfs.org/node/1000 The Dawn of the Post-literate Age], by Patrick Tucker, THE FUTURIST Magazine, November–December 2009. *''The Gutenberg Galaxy'', Marshall McLuhan, University of Toronto Press, 1962 *''Empire of Illusion'', [[Chris Hedges]], 2009, {{ISBN|978-1-56858-437-9}}

[[Category:Literacy]] [[Category:Science fiction themes]]