The title of a recent article by Times Columnist and cultural commentator, James Marriott, portended ‘The Dawn of the Post-literate Society’, foretelling “the end of civilisation” as its terrifying subheading. In the piece, Marriott broadly outlines the dire position of the written word. The most shocking marker of this decline comes from the OECD, which announced in late 2024 that for the first time in history literacy levels across much of the developed world are either stagnating, or in decline. Such a prospect terrifies Marriot and should scare you too. From person-to-person, the slump in reading comprehension strongly correlates to a decline in problem-solving, cognitive ability, concentration and memory. Across a societal level, the loss of long, sophisticated argument ushers in the death knells of democracy itself. However, amidst the doom and gloom, the medium through which Marriott chose to deliver this literary obituary bears additional significance. He published it on Substack: a creator-driven online platform created in 2017 for typically longer-form articles and blog posts. While I am not saying that this social media platform will definitely elevate society out of what Marriot creatively coins the “moronic inferno”, the rise in Substack, and apps like it, might be one of the last hopes for literacy and long-form engagement that we have left.

“Across a societal level, the loss of long, sophisticated argument ushers in the death knells of democracy itself”

My faith in the prognosticatory cure of Substack is not without sufficient evidence. As of early 2025, the app boasts 50 million active and over 5 million paid subscribers: a figure that does not look like it is dropping anytime soon. Part of this growing appeal lies in Substack’s ability to meet the fluctuating demands of readers in an online climate. In line with the fast-paced style of other social media platforms, creators can offer direct and instant commentary without editorial mediation or censorship. In its own words, it is “a new ecosystem of independent voices” that “provides robust resistance to the centralized systems and institutions that would otherwise injure our discourse”. Part of this strength comes from the app’s encouragement of dialogic engagement. Whether in comment threads, posts, or online book clubs, the platform facilitates reading as a communal project. These communicative methods additionally help to establish closer relationships with authors, a previously unprecedented possibility. Moreover, in this modern fashion, algorithms can also be conceived of in positive terms. By having material recommended to you, reading choice becomes increasingly heterogenous, nurturing smaller, typically hidden voices. Likewise, posts frequently contain hyperlinks to alternative reading material or review books, again helping to enrich engagement with every share.

“These communicative methods additionally help to establish closer relationships with authors, a previously unprecedented possibility”

The freedom offered by Substack does not merely provide new opportunities for reading, but for writing too. By downloading an app, writers have an opportunity to catalogue and distribute their work to new audiences. Hanif Kureishi, the author of My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), documents how Substack give him a daily purpose after an injury in late 2022 left him paralysed and unable to write through conventional means. By dictating to his wife and two sons, Kureishi was able to document his journey, releasing ‘dispatches’ a couple of times a week to The Kureishi Chronicles. These updates proved successful for a number of reasons: allowing Kureishi to experiment in a new style of informal and autobiographical writing, pushing him into new spheres, but also breaking down the once-popular perception of Kureishi’s arrogance through closer readership engagement. He eventually extended these ‘dispatches’ into a longer memoir published in 2024 called Shattered.

“As the desire for reading changes, so must the forms of dissemination”

Writing in this new format has even been embraced by academics and journalists; those who were once a part of the institutions of ‘professional’ writing. Literary critic Rita Felski notes how writing beyond the establishment signals “an eagerness to break free of scholarly straitjacket in order to experiment with voice, form and genre”. This encouragement of experimentation is further supported by Substack’s ability to offer writers greater financial autonomy. Such an opportunity appears particularly pertinent when art’s funding is at once caught up in a perpetual struggle for legitimacy, but yet remains attached to the pressures of “the publishing imperative” (a phrase coined by Gordon Fellman in 1995). In other words, a diversity of income streams and the benefits of direct monetisation without the interaction of ‘third parties’ might be the saving grace of creative voices.

The undoubtable importance of literacy as the life blood of both the body personal and the body collective means that it is not enough to simply diagnose the conditions of this illiterate sickness. We live in the age of the screen. But while its place in our society is inevitable, the harm it entails does not have to be. As the desire for reading changes, so must the forms of dissemination. During the ‘Reading Revolution’ of the 18th century the founder of The Spectator, Joseph Addington, memorably remarked: “It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among Men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-tables, and in Coffee houses.” I end on a similarly ambitious note. I wish to have it said of Substack that it will spread knowledge beyond stuffy institutions and unread magazines, academic papers and unreflective op-eds, and thrust critical commentary into online communities, into your homes, and into your pockets.