Social media has become an almost inseparable companion in daily life. People can barely eat without scrolling through their phones or watch a full movie without checking for notifications. However, the consequences of these habits haven’t been fully understood. The need to scroll and consume media is affecting our ability to interpret the world. In other words, media literacy is declining.
According to the National Literacy Trust, media literacy is the skill needed to think critically, analyse, evaluate and create media in various forms. It’s also stated that it is an essential life skill that can be improved like problem-solving, data-analysis and many other analytical skills.
Regardless of the apparent simplicity of the skillset, media literacy continues to decrease, and the rise of BookTok might be one of multiple justifications for this shift.
Inside the BookTok phenomenon
Emerging in the early 2020s, Booktok was made in order to create a sense of community during the pandemic. What was supposed to be a controlled group quickly became a cultural phenomenon, turning reading into something desirable, a product.
Unlike Youtube’s long-form reviews or Instagram’s static posts, TikTok’s fast paced content replaced long analysis with bite-sized reactions, full with over exaggerated emotions, while also democratizing access to literature, letting youth discover books through creators they relate to.Â
Books have long been seen as a symbol of intelligence, and the rise of the new “reader aesthetic” only intensified that association, turning reading into something to be displayed, not just done. Curated reading vlogs, color-coded shelves and cozy aesthetic set-ups transform the act into a performance of identity as much as intellectual pursuit.Â
Nowadays, however, many are written along the thought of lack of media literacy: they are made around recycled tropes, characters and relationships ideas, like the famous “enemies to lovers” or even “found family” tropes. These can leave little room for the reader to get to its own conclusion about the topics.Â
Familiar tropes aren’t inherently an issue. The problem appears when they become the expected structure of a story. If the reader already knows what kind of ending to expect, there is less need to sit with uncertainty. Yet, literature isn’t made of comfortable answers.
It is possible to have interesting plots, unresolved questions, uncomfortable characters or ending with no explanation, hence it’s not the author’s job to handle all the answers.
Since BookTok became the ultimate destination of new readers, the platform was supposed to be a gateway into reading, introducing new titles and authors that could have not been discovered otherwise. Even so, it changed paths when the whole aesthetic started.Â
Beyond the page
The same transformation can be observed in other spheres, beyond literature. Technology has changed not only what people watch, but especially how they watch it. A movie or a TV show are no longer watched with undivided attention. With cellphones often within reach, checking on a notification, answering a message or scrolling through social media will most likely happen while watching.
This behavior is referred to as “second screen”: the practice of using a secondary device, usually a smartphone, while “simultaneously engaging” with primary content on another screen, according to The Week.
What was once an occasional distraction has become a common way of consuming media. However, the problem is not that the audiences are looking away from the screens, but media is adapting to an audience that no longer gives full attention to television, like the new Netflix works, which are always around when the discussion starts.Â
If the viewer is often not paying the needed attention, a story has to remain understandable even when parts are missed. This reality encourages simpler narratives, more explicit dialogue and repeated information, reducing the need to remember details; interpret what is left unsaid; or sit with ambiguity, and, without these actions, viewers are trained to recognize the plot rather to reconstruct meaning.
The second screen idea represents more than a competition for attention. It reflects a broader change in the way media is experienced. Just as BookTok can make books easier to categorize through over-repeated plots, movies and TV shows can become easier to consume without demanding the usual attention and critical thinking. In both cases, convenience and comfort can come before the idea of interpretation.
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The article above was edited by Isabela Raucci.
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