Smartphones Turbocharged Reading Decline
October 5, 2026
Reading has been in decline for decades. Joel Halldorf from LitHub agrees with this statement in his article: “Did Smartphones Really Kill Reading?” He points out that Rose Horowitch from The Atlantic says that reading is: “brief and distracted, quite different from the focused attention encouraged by print. Modern readers may still be able to decode words, Horowitch argues, but they struggle to comprehend longer texts. Our society is not illiterate, but post-literate.”
Reading has been in decline long before the smartphone was invented. Literary critic George Seiner said that the gradual end to reading started in the 1950s with the growth of radio, cinema, and television then accelerated in the 1980s.
Reading should and probably will be protected by certain groups of people. That can be done by protecting the printed book:
“Digital devices can help us find information quickly, but print is better suited to focused reading. Schools therefore need to continue championing books, yet the trend has lately moved in the opposite direction. In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English declared that it was time to “decenter book reading” in order to address “inequalities in digital technologies and competencies.” But equity can be used as an argument in support of the opposite approach. Children who do not grow up surrounded by books depend on schools to introduce them to sustained reading. Like computers, printed books are a technology that must be learned.”
The second way to protect reading is having space where reading is the normal practice and third is making reading social again. Halldorf is pointing out the true history that radio started the downward trend then smartphones and other devices turbocharged it. He does provide a hopeful future, if only it will happen. Note: I heard that book stores are the go-to places to meet people who … wait for it … like to read. Amazing.
Whitney Grace, October 5, 2026
Teen Readership: Doom Scrolling Is the Thing
September 23, 2026
The trusted news outlet Reuters reports that teen readership is at an all time low in the article: “Teen Reading Slumps To Worst This Century Due To Surge In Screen Time.” Remember that report a few weeks ago that Gen Alpha is dumber than Gen Z? Reading scores are at an all time for a number of reasons. The main cause is that teens are spending more time on screen. Books are the losers in the Age of Doom Scrolling. In the United States, youngsters learn to read as if they were deciphering ideographs. Phonices and “sounding out”? Nope, that’s for losers in many American schools.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development tested 760,000 fifteen-year-olds from 91 countries in science, mathematics, and reading. The results were the lowest since the organization started collecting data in 2000. I learned:
“On average, students were reading at a level that had in the past been expected of students one year younger, according to the OECD’s latest Program for International Student Assessment released on Tuesday. A 2012 reading high of 501 on PISA’s index had declined to a score of 466 last year. The test is widely regarded as the world’s leading gauge of educational performance ?and its results are closely scrutinized by governments and educators.”
Kids are reading quickly through a text, but missing information and are getting wrong answers. Another problem is that kids are using AI chatbots to do the reading. Some students then rely on smart software to draft essays, summarize texts and for research, and do the grunt work that once required a trip to the library. As a result, many students achieve a much lower score in science.
Is there a fix? No.
Can you name a company happy to inject shaped information into the minds of mobile and smart software dependent students? Pick from the list below:
- [a] Anthropic
- [b] Google
- [c] Meta
- [d] OpenAI.
This is the type of test young students prefer. You may have an opportunity to hire some in the near future.
Whitney Grace, September 23, 2026
The AI Phone: What Will Bad Actors Do with Smart Software and a Smart Device
May 20, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Here’s a preview of one of the topics I will present at the restricted access Ciifer Conference later in 2026. AI phones in the hands of bad actors with access to smart software that can code agents, bots, smart contracts, and intelligent scripts?
The quick answer is, “First, some will raise their eyes to the sky and thank God. Second, the younger bad actors will just hop to and commit online crime.”
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough and a tiresome struggle to get you working.
Is an AI phone available for purchase now? Nope. But to one writer at Tech News World, the AI phone is zooming toward the Information Superhighway. Arrival is likely to be the near future. “OpenAI Eyes AI Agent Phone, Kuo Says” assumes the reader knows one individual Ming-Chi Kuo, who is described as “as master prognosticator.” What does this person suggest?
According to the write up report as actual factual about the future phone?
OpenAI is working with MediaTek and Qualcomm to develop smartphone processors.
I am not sure that this helps me understand the AI phone, but I did receive the message to invest in MediaTek and Qualcomm.
What else?
The biggest benefit to OpenAI and consumers is the vertical integration of AI into the device itself, maintained Siddardha Vangala, a senior AI systems engineer at MasTec, an infrastructure engineering and construction company in Coral Gables, Fla. “Today, smartphones treat AI as an add-on feature,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If OpenAI builds its own phone, it could redesign the user experience around intelligence rather than apps.” “That would enable things like persistent memory across tasks, deeper personalization, and faster on-device reasoning,” he explained. “Instead of launching separate apps, users would interact with a single intelligent interface that can coordinate services in the background.” “From an engineering standpoint,” he continued, “owning the hardware also allows optimization of AI workloads at the silicon and operating-system level, similar to how Apple optimized iPhones for machine learning.”
Okay, some detail. I don’t know what happened to the prognosticator, but here’s what this paragraph suggests to me:
- OpenAI wants to do the monopoly thing; that is, control everything for the AI phone. Okay, this is standard BAIT (big AI tech) thinking.
- AI will be the plumbing; it won’t be an add on the way Apple AI is alleged to be or what the struggling Telegram is trying to deliver with its distributed Cocoon, no investment swing at the all.
- Buy an AI phone and sucking in the user’s data is automatic; that is, no choice. The AI phone becomes a Mini-Me.
- The AI phone does everything. No apps, no play store, no nothing except the AI phone meeting one’s information needs.
The write up points its prediction at OpenAI and its “partners.” (Hey, remember Musk and Altman were once partners, so there may be more partners.)
The write up points out what I think is an obvious issue; specifically:
Security and privacy will be top concerns for an AI phone. “Since the AI agent acts on behalf of the user, it will access messages, apps, and personal data, plus it will track all activity across the device,” noted Zbynek Sopuch, CTO of Safetica, an intelligent data security solutions provider headquartered in Prague. “These very broad permissions are a slippery slope of both far too much data being collected and almost no visibility into what is even being collected,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Ultimately, users won’t know what the AI itself is doing and what data it is using. We’ve already seen examples of how AI has been exploited by bad actors,” he said, “so imagine an even worse scenario now where a compromised device means an attacker can gain access to multiple systems at once.”
Guess what? OpenAI won’t care. Without any meaningful regulatory pressure in the US, OpenAI can do what it wants. And if that company cannot pull it off, I know a number of other “me too” AI phones will become available.
What could bad actors do with an always-monitoring, always-acting automatic device capability? I will go over three potential use cases in my lecture to the cyber investigators. You, dear reader of a free blog, will have to use your imagination.
Net net: An AI phone is coming. OpenAI is not the only outfit thinking about this type of device and what it can do. Remember those pagers that detonated because a harmless device was okayed for field use in a kinetic conflict? That’s a clue. Just convert that type of play to a cyber action.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2026
Has Japan Caught the Ka-Ching Cash Register Bug?
February 19, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I just caught up on my news. Tucked into the list was an interesting write up with an international spin: “A Coalition of 600-Plus Companies in Japan Wants More Regulatory Action against Apple and Google.” Doesn’t Japan know that the US is busy regulating big tech? Apparently not or the actions taken have not addressed some of the allegations leveled at these exemplary American firms.
The write up states:
Last December Apple announced changes impacting iOS apps in Japan to comply with the Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA). However they’re apparently not enough for a coalition representing more than 600 local companies is calling for further regulatory action….However, seven IT-related industry groups, including the Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association, released a joint statement on Thursday calling on Apple and Google to swiftly eliminate new commissions imposed on app companies, reports The Japan News. The groups said the burden of the commissions is so heavy that directing users to external sites for payment “has not become a viable option.”
The article points out:
According to The Japan Times, they also argued that in the U.S., similar payment methods are offered free of charge. The groups accused Apple and Google of placing Japan’s consumers and businesses at a disadvantage compared to ones in the United States.
Several thoughts crossed my mind:
- Has Japan caught the EU’s ka-ching cash register bug? The idea is that suing US big tech firms can produce cash which can be collected once the endless appeals have been exhausted.
- Is Apple consciously discriminating against Japanese professionals? If so, why?
- Is this matter another example of Apple’s flagging management control? I ask this question because Siri is a no show again. What’s up with getting the management cart seeming unable to pull stuff from the orchard?
I don’t think too much about Apple. But maybe I should pay attention?
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 226
Is Google the Macintosh in the Big Apple PAI?
January 27, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I want to be fair. Everyone, including companies that are recognized in the US as having the same “rights” as a citizen, is entitled to an opinion. Google is expressing an opinion, if the information in “Google Appeals Ruling on Illegal Search Monopoly” is correct. The write up says:
Google has appealed a US ruling that in 2024 found the company had an illegal monopoly in internet search and search advertising, reports CNBC. After a special hearing on penalties, the court decided in 2025 on milder measures than those originally proposed by the US Department of Justice.
Google, if I understand this news report, believes it is not a monopoly. Okay, that’s an opinion. Let’s assume that Google is correct. Its Android operating system, its Chrome browser, and its online advertising businesses along with other Google properties do not constitute a monopoly. Just keep that thought in mind: Google is not a monopoly.
Thanks, Venice. Good enough.
Consider that idea in the context of this write up in Macworld, an online information service: “If Google Helps Apple Beat Google, Does Everyone Lose?” The article states:
Basing Siri on Google Gemini, then, is a concession of defeat, and the question is what that defeat will cost. Of course, it will result in more features and very likely a far more capable Siri. Google is in a better position than Apple to deliver on the reckless promises and vaporware demos we heard and saw at WWDC 2024. The question is what compromises Apple will be asked to make, and which compromises it will be prepared to make, in return.
With all due respect to the estimable Macworld, I want to suggest the key question is: “What does the deal with Apple mean to Google’s argument that it is not a monopoly?”
The two companies control the lion’s share of the mobile device operating systems. The data from these mobile devices pump a significant amount of useful metadata and content to each of these companies. One can tell me that there will be a “Great Wall of Secrecy” between the two firms. I can be reassured that every system administrator involved in this tie up, deal, relationship, or “just pals” cooperating set up will not share data.
Google will remain the same privacy centric, user first operation it has been since it got into the online advertising business decades ago. The “don’t be evil” slogan is no longer part of the company credo, but the spirit of just being darned ethical remains the same as it was when Paul Buchheit allegedly came up with this memorable phrase. I assume it is now part of the Google DNA.,
Apple will continue to embrace the security, privacy, and vertical business approach that it has for decades. Despite the niggling complaints about the company’s using negotiation to do business with some interesting entities in the Middle Kingdom, Apple is working hard to allow its users that flexibility to do almost anything each wants within the Apple ecosystem of the super-open App Store.
Who wins in this deal?
I would suggest that Google is the winner for these reasons:
- Google now provides its services to the segment of the upscale mobile market that it has not been able to saturate
- Google provides Apple with its AI services from its constellation of data centers although that may change after Apple learns more about smart software, Google’s logs, and Google’s advertising system
- Google aced out the totally weak wristed competitors like Grok, OpenAI, Apple’s own internal AI team or teams, and open source solutions from a country where Apple a few, easy-to-manage, easy-to-replace manufacturing sets.
What’s Apple get? My view is:
- A way to meet its year’s old promises about smart software
- Some time to figure out how to position this waving of the white flag and the emails to Google suggesting, “Let’s meet up for a chat.”
- Catch up with companies that are doing useful things with smart software despite the hallucination problems.
The cited write up says:
In the end, the most likely answer is some complex mixture of incentives that may never be completely understood outside the companies (or outside an antitrust court hearing).
That statement is indeed accurate. Score a big win for the Googlers. Google is the Apple pulp, the skin, and the meat of the deal.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2026
More Obvious Commentary about the Smart Phone That Makes People Stupid
January 16, 2026
Adults are rabid about protecting kids. Whether it’s chalked up to instinct, love, or simple common sense, no one can argue that it’s necessary to guide and guard younger humans. A big debate these days is when it is appropriate to give kids their first smartphone. According to The New York Times, that should probably be never: “A Smartphone Before Age 12 Could Carry Health Risks, Study Says.”
The journal named Pediatrics reported that when kids younger than twelve are given a smartphone, they’re at a greater risk for poor sleep, obesity, and depression. These results were from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study that surveyed 10,500 kids. This is what they discovered:
“The younger that children under 12 were when they got their first smartphones, the study found, the greater their risk of obesity and poor sleep. The researchers also focused on a subset of children who hadn’t received a phone by age 12 and found that a year later, those who had acquired one had more harmful mental health symptoms and worse sleep than those who hadn’t.”
Kids equipped with smartphones spent less time socializing in person and are less inclined to exercise or prioritize sleep. All these activities are exceedingly important for developing minds. They’re stunting and seriously harming their growth with smartphones.
Smartphones are a tool like anything else. They’re seriously addicting because of their engagement. Videogames were given the same bad rep when they became popular. At least videogames had the social interaction of arcades back in the day.
Just ban all smartphones for kids. That could work if the lobbyists and political funding policies undergo a little change. If not, duh.
Whitney Grace, January 16, 2026
Apple and Google: Lots of Nots, Nos, and Talk
January 15, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
This is the dinobaby, an 81 year old dinobaby. In my 60 plus year work career I have been around, in, and through what I call “not and no” PR. The basic idea is that one floods the zones with statements about what an organization will do. Examples range from “our Wi-Fi sniffers will not log home access point data” to “our AI service will not capture personal details” to “our security policies will not hamper usability of our devices.” I could go on, but each of these statements were uttered in meetings, in conference “hallway” conversations, or in public podcasts.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough. See I am prevaricating. This image sucks. The logos are weird. GW looks like a wax figure.
I want to tell you that if the Nots and Nos identified in the flood of write ups about the Apple Google AI tie up immutable like Milton’s description of his God, the nots and nos are essentially pre-emptive PR. Both firms are data collection systems. The nature of the online world is that data are logged, metadata captured and mindlessly processed for a statistical signal, and content processed simply because “why not?”
Here’s a representative write up about the Apple Google nots and nos: “Report: Apple to Fine-Tune Gemini Independently, No Google Branding on Siri, More.” So what’s the more that these estimable firms will not do? Here’s an example:
Although the final experience may change from the current implementation, this partly echoes a Bloomberg report from late last year, in which Mark Gurman said: “I don’t expect either company to ever discuss this partnership publicly, and you shouldn’t expect this to mean Siri will be flooded with Google services or Gemini features already found on Android devices. It just means Siri will be powered by a model that can actually provide the AI features that users expect — all with an Apple user interface.”
How about this write up: “Official: Apple Intelligence & Siri To Be Powered By Google Gemini.”
Source details how Apple’s Gemini deal works: new Siri features launching in spring and at WWDC, Apple can finetune Gemini, no Google branding, and more
Let’s think about what a person who thinks the way my team does. Here are what we can do with these nots and nos:
- Just log everything and don’t talk about the data
- Develop specialized features that provide new information about use of the AI service
- Monitor the actions of our partners so we can be prepared or just pounce on good ideas captured with our “phone home” code
- Skew the functionality so that our partners become more dependent on our products and services; for example, exclusive features only for their users.
The possibilities are endless. Depending upon the incentives and controls put in place for this tie up, the employees of Apple and Google may do what’s needed to hit their goals. One can do PR about what won’t happen but the reality of certain big technology companies is that these outfits defy normal ethical boundaries, view themselves as the equivalent of nation states, and have a track record of insisting that bending mobile devices do not bend and that information of a personal nature is not cross correlated.
Watch the pre-emptive PR moves by Apple and Google. These outfits care about their worlds, not those of the user.
Just keep in mind that I am an old, very old, dinobaby. I have some experience in these matters.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2025
Gambling Is An Addiction & The Internet Starts ‘Em Young
January 8, 2026
Robert Custer was a psychiatrist who promoted the theory that gambling addition was a mental disorder. His pioneering research is the basis for modern treatments of gambling disorder. Since Custer’s prime in the 1970s and 1980s, gambling has exploded, not just with brick and mortar casinos, but also online gambling and expansion of mobile sports betting. Science News discusses the rising tide of online gambling in the article, “As Gambling Addiction Spreads, One Scientist’s Work Reveals Timely Insights.”
Custer’s research is more relevant now than ever especially as the behavior is nurtured in kids from the moment they can hold a mobile device. Custer fought to include the disorder in the DSM and he succeeded:
“Custer argued that pathological gambling was not just a matter of an individual’s building and releasing tension. Rather, pathological gambling followed a progressive course from slightly unhealthy gambling behaviors to increasingly problematic wagering with tangible financial and social consequences. As a result, the committee incorporated the common consequences Custer saw in his clinical experience — such as defaulting on debts, borrowing money and struggling with family relationships — as diagnostic criteria to better identify those suffering. So, while pathological gambling remained alongside impulse control disorders in the DSM-III, its description and diagnostic criteria more closely mirrored the way the manual approached substance use disorders.”
Kids become addicted to online games that mimic the same dopamine release that gamblers experience. Social media giants are huge enablers of this behavior but so is Telegram. Telegram wants to hook the kids young so they’ll be addicted until the day they fall into a hole. It’s despicable and makes you want to toss a kid outside with a ball and stick. Go outside!
Whitney Grace, January 8, 2025
No Phones, Boys Get Smarter. Yeah
December 11, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I am busy with a new white paper, but one of my team called this short item to my attention. Despite my dislike of interruptions, “School Cell Phone Bans and Student Achievement” sparked my putting down one thing and addressing this research study. No, I don’t know the sample size, and I did not investigate it. No, I don’t know what methods were used to parse the information and spit out the graphic, and I did not invest time to poke around.
Young females having lunch with their mobile phones in hand cannot believe the school’s football star now gets higher test scores. Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
The main point of the research report, in my opinion, is to provide proof positive that mobile phones in classrooms interfere with student learning. Now, I don’t know about you, but my reaction is, “You did not know that?” I taught for a mercifully short time before I dropped out of my Ph.D. program and took a job at Halliburton’s nuclear unit. (Dick Cheney worked at Halliburton. Remember him?)
The write up from NBER.org states:
Two years after the imposition of a student cell phone ban, student test scores in a large urban school district were significantly higher than before.
But here’s the statement that caught my attention:
Test score improvements were also concentrated among male students (up 1.4 percentiles, on average) and among middle and high school students (up 1.3 percentiles, on average).
But what about the females? Why did this group not show “boy level” improvement? I don’t know much about young people in middle and high school. However, based on observation of young people at the Blaze discount pizza restaurant, females who seem to me to be in middle school and high school do three things simultaneously:
- Chatter excitedly with their friends
- Eat pizza
- Interact with their phones or watch what’s on the screen while doing [1] and [2].
I think more research is needed. I know from some previous research that females outperform males academically up to a certain age. How does mobile phone usage impact this data, assuming those data which I dimly recall are or were accurate? Do mobile devices hold males back until the mobiles are removed and then, like magic, do these individuals manifest higher academic performance?
Maybe the data in the NBER report are accurate, but the idea that males — often prone to playing games, fooling around, and napping in class — benefit more from a mobile ban than females is interesting. The problem is I am not sure that the statement lines up with my experience.
But I am a dinobaby, just one that is not easily distracted unless an interesting actual factual research reports catches my attention.
Stephen E Arnold, December 11, 2025
Mobile Hooking People: Digital Drugs
November 10, 2025
Most of us know that spending too much time on our phones is a bad idea, especially for young minds. We also know the companies on the other end profit from keeping us glued to the screen. The Conversation examines the ways “Smartphones Manipulate our Emotions and Trigger our Reflexes– No Wonder We’re Addicted.” Yes–try taking a 12 year old’s mobile phone and let us know how that goes.
Of course, social media, AI chatbots, games, and other platforms have their own ways of capturing our attention. This article, however, focuses on ways the phones themselves manipulate users. Author Stephen Monteiro writes:
“As I argue in my newly published book, Needy Media: How Tech Gets Personal, our phones — and more recently, our watches — have become animated beings in our lives. These devices can build bonds with us by recognizing our presence and reacting to our bodies. Packed with a growing range of technical features that target our sensory and psychological soft spots, smartphones create comforting ties that keep us picking them up. The emotional cues designed into these objects and interfaces imply that they need our attention, while in actuality, the devices are soaking up our data.”
The write-up explores how phones’ responsive features, like facial recognition, geolocation, touchscreen interactions, vibrations and sounds, and motion and audio sensing, combine to build a potent emotional attachment. Meanwhile, devices have drastically increased how much information they collect and when. They constantly record data on everything we do on our phones and even in our environments. One chilling example: With those sensors, software can build a fairly accurate record of our sleep patterns. Combine that with health and wellness apps, and that gives app-makers a surprisingly comprehensive picture. Have you seen any eerily insightful ads for fitness, medical, or mindfulness products lately? Soon, they will be even be able to gauge our emotions through analysis of our facial expressions. Just what we need.
Given a cell phone is pretty much required to navigate life these days, what are we to do? Monteiro suggests:
“We can access device settings and activate only those features we truly require, adjusting them now and again as our habits and lifestyles change. Turning on geolocation only when we need navigation support, for example, increases privacy and helps break the belief that a phone and a user are an inseparable pair. Limiting sound and haptic alerts can gain us some independence, while opting for a passcode over facial recognition locks reminds us the device is a machine and not a friend. This may also make it harder for others to access the device.”
If these measures do not suffice, one can go retro with a “dumb” phone. Apparently, that is a trend among Gen Z. Perhaps there is hope for humanity yet.
Cynthia Murrell, November 10, 2025
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