I'm all for it. Nuke it from orbit. I do like usefull YouTube and short videos of how to fix/build stuff though.
I'm glad we made it through the turmoil of the printing press and reliable paper manufacturing:
Then came the early 19th century, which saw enormous changes in the manufacture of paper and improvements on the printing press. These changes both contributed to and resulted from major societal changes, such as the worldwide growth increase in formal education. There were more books than ever and more people who could read them. For some, this looked less like progress and more like a dangerous and destabilizing trend that could threaten not just literature, but the solvency of civilization itself.
https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/19th-century-moral-panic-over-paper-technology/
AI Overview
In the 1800s, fears arose that
widespread reading, especially of cheap novels and partisan newspapers, would degrade culture by fostering addiction, anti-social behavior, moral corruption, and distraction from "real" knowledge,with critics describing it as a "reading mania" or "fever" that made people lazy, overly emotional, and disconnected from community, a common cultural panic mirroring concerns about new media today.
Key Concerns & "Stories":
Reading Mania: A prevalent fear was that avid readers, particularly of fiction, suffered from an addiction or "disease" that isolated them, blurring reality and corrupting morals, turning them into anti-social daydreamers.
Distraction from Substance: Critics, like those writing in the 1820s, urged young people to stick to serious history and biographies, viewing novels as frivolous "flowery" distractions from sober facts.
Moral & Intellectual Decline: There was a worry that the sheer volume of printed material, especially sensationalist or partisan news, would make people intellectually lazy, unable to memorize, and susceptible to misinformation, undermining true understanding.
Social Fragmentation: The act of reading, once a communal activity, became individual, leading to concerns that people would become oblivious to their peers and community, lost in their books.
The "Decline" Narrative:
These worries weren't isolated; they were part of a broader anxiety about the transformative power of print technology, much like today's debates about screens and the internet. The rise of mass-produced books and cheap newspapers created a new information landscape, prompting older generations to lament a perceived loss of traditional values, deeper thinking, and community cohesion, all blamed on the new media.
In essence, the "story" was that accessible reading wasn't uplifting everyone but rather creating a new kind of cultural illiteracy and moral weakness, a recurring theme whenever a new way to consume stories and information takes hold.