The conquering of the world by smartphones has certainly been one of the most visible and most significant technological changes we have witnessed in our lifetimes.   

      Opinions on whether it has been a change for the better most definitely differ.

      A month ago I suggested that we post on this site an intelligent and interesting, though in my view wrongheaded, screed by James Marriott, who thinks the smartphone has been a giant step backwards. Then we published my rebuttal, in which I argued that the smartphone is just another new technology that makes old folks nervous but ends up broadening horizons. And, because smartphones have become such an important part of our lives, we published my friend and colleague Neil Offen’s own thoughtful attack on the smartphone and its consequences: a rebuttal of my rebuttal.

      But this is a big subject and, given the time we’re all spending on our phones, an important one. There’s more I want to say—this time in a satirical vein, or at least an attempt at a satirical vein . . .

      James Marriott has composed a particularly eloquent elegy for reading, now that humanity seems to be turning in another direction: toward screening—toward the smartphone. Marriott’s elegy is also particularly frightening, for he sees “the post-literate world [as] characterized by simplicity, ignorance and stagnation.” This website excerpted a chunk of Marriott’s depressing argument the day before the essay you are now reading is being published.

      And how can any of us whose thoughts have been formed in large part by newspapers, magazines and books—by descriptions and propositions, by sentences—not feel some sadness watching them being made redundant. How can we avoid some disquiet about the ongoing triumph of that flickering, know-it-all, video-jukebox-busybody, smart-alecky phone—to whose siren song even we often enough succumb?  

      . . . But I wanted to hear Marriott out not because he is right but because his argument—which is showing up in many forms lately, forms not often as literate and eloquent—is, I believe, profoundly and importantly and demonstrably wrong. . . .