Writing is an exercise of the mind, a training ground for our intellectual and cognitive health.

But what happens to a culture when reading and writing are replaced by the consumption of short-form media?

Generations lose tools that sharpened the mind. Social media and its attention-grabbing 1-minute-or-less content gives us a sense that we've learned something new, but there is no depth behind it. We “learn” that people are building businesses with X, Y, and Z, or going viral with A, B, C.

It's a flurry of ideas, but without context or substance. It's noise dressed up as insight.

Social media is a marketing platform where everyone is broadcasting themselves. We're incentivized to play the monetization game—chasing views, likes, and sales funnels. That doesn't make it evil, but it does shift our relationship with communication.

And now, with AI able to clean up—or even generate—our ideas, the value of writing well comes into question. Maybe it’s like knowing directions before Google Maps: a once-crucial skill rendered obsolete.

But I’d argue the opposite. Writing is here to stay—just like Ozempic won’t replace a healthy diet, AI won’t replace the mental workout that real writing provides.

We need writing to strengthen our minds. We need it to understand the world around us. We need it to challenge our thoughts in a way that media consumption alone can never do.

Writing under the pseudonym Hilarius BookBinder, a college professor captures the essence: "Sadly, not writing exacerbates [college students'] illiteracy; writing is a muscle and dedicated writing is a workout for the mind as well as the pen."
— https://hilariusbookbinder.substack.com/p/the-average-college-student-today

I’ll be honest: I don’t have a prepackaged solution for how we can incentivize society to read and write. But I do know we are seeing a generation lose the benefits of writing.

We can start small. A few words a day. A gratitude journal. Some expression where the pen meets the paper or the fingers hit the keyboard.

Here's an invitation: try free-flow writing for 30 seconds for a week. Pay attention to what happens to your mind. Do ideas become clearer? Did you discover any thoughts you felt were clear but were actually tangled?

Writing is a flashlight—turn it on and see what’s really in your mind.