Robert Blackmore, the editor of Beekeeping, the monthly journal for beekeepers in Devon, England, frustrated by both the lack of contributions and of assistance in compiling the summer issue, wrote, “As yet, no decisions have been made but something needs to change. If you have any thoughts about this magazine, its value, its role in the Association, have something to offer to help produce it, now is the time to speak up. All feedback is much appreciated.”
In the August issue, he bemoans the absence of any response to his appeal. My guess is that most people are confused; they sense what is happening and yet don’t know how to put words to it (ironically!) and thus hold their counsel.
Based on data from the National Endowment for the Arts, which conducts the most comprehensive survey of America’s reading habits, three of every four beekeepers who receive the PSBA newsletter will not read this column. The reasons are varied : it is too long, the language is too complex, the ideas require too much thought, I don’t have enough time, there aren’t any illustrations, even “I did not like one of the previous columns and so have read none of them since.”
Common to all of these excuses is a decline in reading as a nation as a whole; In fact this year it is estimated that Americans will spend more time gambling than they will reading!
The most recent NEA survey shows that
. fewer than half of all adults read a book of any kind in 2022;
. only 38% read a novel;
. only 16% read for pleasure;
. books that are read are more simple with shorter sentences;
. less than 10% of Americans read a newspaper – they get their news from their phones and laptops;
. 40% say they would rather watch or listen to the news on line, than read it;
. only 2% of adults read to a child on a daily basis.
This decline in reading, which is irrespective of age group, gender and education level,
is being labeled the Post-Literate Era.
Writing values lengthy, well organized, logical arguments and as such was the precondition for philosophy, modern science, even political upheaval and revolution – consider the role that newspapers and pamphlets played in fomenting anti-British sentiments in the American colonies in the late C18th. We are still reading – indeed, as Rosa Horowitch spells out in the August issue of The Atlantic, we are reading more words than ever before, as in e-mails, texts, posts, threads and captions, but it comes at a cost – a loss of higher order thinking skills like analysis and synthesis.
This was predicted in 1962 by Marshall Mcluhan, whom Rose labels ‘the patron saint of media theorists’ and who first used the term post-literate, on the basis that electronic media were supplanting the written word. At the time the average household spent 5 hours in front of the TV set, compared to 7 hours in 1985 and 9 hours in 2010. “The problem,” observed Neil Postman, “is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.”
And now there is a revolution within the media industry – screen time v TV. In 2026, Americans are expected to log a daily average of 12 hours of screen time, most of which is taken up by smartphones at 4 hours and 5 minutes per day. By 8th grade the average child is spending almost 5 hours a day on social media, most of which is spent watching videos often at 2x speed. Broken down by generation, Gen Z, or Zoomers (ie. those born between 1997 and 2012, for those who, like me, are easily confused by these labels,) spends the most time on screens at 15 hours and 19 minutes per day.
Not only does screen time crowd out the silent time necessary for reading and reflection but entertainment is limitless as one show bleeds into another. And the endless scroll, hyperlinks and notifications invite surface-level readings. I for one comprehend less when I read on a digital device; somehow it is more difficult to pause, reflect, stay focused. We are so used to instant gratification (which, as one wag said, is no longer fast enough) that the average attention span has fallen from two and a half minutes in 2004 to 8.25 seconds in 2026. Famously, and disputedly, the attention span of a gold fish is 9 seconds!
And just as we are reading more words, so do videos contain more information – language, sounds and moving images – than texts, but they do not stimulate deeper thinking. According to the Haskins Global Literary Club, students are arriving at elementary school with a poor ability to maintain focus and a low tolerance for mental exertion. Adults in turn tend to have a smaller vocabulary compared to their peers fifty years ago, and the rise in IQ since the 1930’s has reversed over the last two decades.
There are an increasing number of on-line sites, discussion groups and forums where beekeepers can find short topics and quick answers, and which may be sufficient for part-time beekeepers with minimal commitment to the craft. It would be interesting to hear what Eugene Makovec and Jerry Hayes, the editors of The American Bee Journal and Bee Culture respectively, are experiencing in terms of subscriptions and contributions to nationally-distributed journals. At the more local level the absence of new contributors to this PSBA newsletter is noticeable, despite the monthly pleas of Regina Rhoa.
For me it is books that contain the real wealth of beekeeping knowledge – the knowledge, memory, morality and wisdom of the ages is in those pages. They were written by the older or more experienced among us and passed down to the inquisitive. Now information passes horizontally from one young person to another, often shaped by streamers, podcasters and influencers and without the filters found in the vertical transmission of data.
For the teacher and the orator in particular there is something called ‘reserve power’ – we share about 10% of what we know, the rest is available if needed. Beekeepers too need that background knowledge which fuels the cognitive skills that good beekeeping requires and which we can see at work in some of the answers offered by the Ask Three Beekeepers section of this newsletter. It is difficult for me to imagine an effective beekeeper who has not read Langstroth, von Frisch, Brother Adam, Eva Crane, Tom Seeley, Mark Winston, and Keith Delaplane, to mention a few.
And especially so in an age of artificial intelligence in which information is often unoriginal, inaccurate, or both. We need the ability to discern and comprehend more than ever, the exact skills, as Rose Horowitch emphasizes, that the use of AI threatens to erode.
Could the generations growing up without books be developing some kind of as-yet-undetected cognitive brilliance? Perhaps, scant as the evidence is. It is heartening that a number of countries are reintroducing into their curriculum courses that are basic to reading and writing, whether it is the use of cursive or limitations on screen time, at the same time as colleges feel compelled to become more remedial in some of their teaching. Please understand, that by reading to this point, you are one of a small cadre of 25% which still values the printed word and the more rational, analytical, and sophisticated mode of thinking that it requires. And me? I still enjoy the struggle of writing in a linear fashion, of forming sentences and paragraphs that allow me to make new connections and to discover new insights. Honey bees are the stimulus, the learning is infinite.
Much credit goes to Rosa Horowitch for her article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic. Clearly she has a promising future as an investigative journalist. She features in several media interviews on this subject, including one by Christina Amanpour.
Our Green Cathedral 