The New Statesman has published an essay suggesting that changing reading habits and shorter attention spans are contributing to what its author calls a modern "literacy crisis" — a trend the writer links to a fall in cultural standards and, implicitly, to the demands of political life.
From audiobooks to Dumas
The essay, published on 12 August 2026, recounts the writer's household discovery of audiobooks and a renewed appetite for long-form 19th-century fiction. The author says he and his wife have been "hooked" on audiobooks, citing a progression from contemporary detective fiction to the works of Alexandre Dumas.
"That we are listening to Dumas and not reading him already feels like some kind of moral failure"
The piece notes the family's mixed success in bringing their children along: while J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit failed to hold the younger listeners, the Harry Potter books proved more appealing to them. For the adults, the writer reports a particular enthusiasm for The Count of Monte Cristo and plans to move on to The Three Musketeers.
Language, complexity and the demands on readers
From those anecdotes the essay moves to a broader judgement: the author argues the richness of language, plot complexity and the intellectual effort once required of readers now seem beyond many modern works. He contrasts those demanding older novels with contemporary fiction that, he contends, often reads like scripts for a streaming drama.
While the piece is framed around literary taste, its premise carries political implications. Political debate, civic engagement and policymaking depend on publics able to follow complex argument, weigh evidence and tolerate sustained attention. The New Statesman essay suggests that if cultural consumption increasingly favours short-form, instantly gratifying narratives, the shared capacity for such attention may be reduced.
- The author reports a shift in household media habits towards audiobooks.
- Classical novels such as The Count of Monte Cristo are presented as demanding sustained attention.
- The essay contrasts that demand with contemporary fiction's perceived resemblance to television drama scripts.
That line of reasoning is not presented as empirical research in the piece but as cultural observation and reflection. The essay’s tone mixes personal anecdote with critique; it stops short of making statistical claims about reading rates or attention-span measurements.
Who benefits and who pays
There are, however, immediate practical consequences to the cultural shift the author describes. Media producers and platforms that favour short, easily consumable content stand to benefit from audiences who prefer that format. Conversely, institutions that rely on citizens' capacity for detailed deliberation — legislatures, tribunals, civic organisations — may face higher transaction costs when publics are less inclined to engage with lengthy, complex material.
For political actors, the change also affects communication strategy: intricate policy proposals are harder to compress into short-form content without loss of nuance, and politicians who master concise, emotionally resonant messages stand to gain relative influence. The essay implies a trade-off between accessibility and depth, though it does not prescribe remedies.
In sum, the New Statesman piece uses family listening habits and a revival of interest in Dumas to pose a wider cultural question: if literary standards and attention are shifting, what does that mean for the quality of public reasoning? The author frames the shift as a symptom of a broader cultural realignment rather than a narrowly literary complaint.
