Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
We live in an age of lexical abundance. More words, more access, more content than at any time in human history. And yet something essential is slipping away. Not reading itself, but the kind of reading that once shaped minds and formed character: slow, immersive, reflective, and richly human. As Harold Bloom noted: “"We read deeply for varied reas... See more
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
As content becomes more engineered than written, AI has stepped into the role of ghostwriter; fluent but fatally hollow. Tools like ChatGPT and its cousins can produce grammatically perfect, tonally inoffensive copy at scale. What they lack, of course, is experience. They have no stake in what they say.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
Not because machines are writing, but because we are beginning to write like them. Predictability has become a virtue. Voice is flattened into tone. Style is reduced to format.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
The reading brain, once forged by sustained attention and deep engagement, is now adapting to an environment built for speed, distraction, and artificial fluency. What we are witnessing is not the end of reading, but rather the end of the essential consolations that reading affords us. Reading, but in ultra-processed form.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
The result of an ROI driven culture - how can we get instant benefits out of spending our time in the here and now?