The Post-Writing Era: From Text to Experience

Fundacja Dobre Państwo • January 2, 2026 • 🇵🇱 Polski

Introduction

Contemporary culture is a constant battle for attention. Media that offer maximum stimulus intensity with minimal effort, such as endless feeds or TikTok, are winning this battle. Our brains, wired for instant gratification, prefer quick visual impulses over the delayed rewards of reading. In the logic of platform capitalism, writing loses because it is too slow. This article explains what the post-literacy era is, how the attention economy driving it operates, and what consequences it holds for society, culture, and politics.

The Post-Literacy Era: The Birth of the Attention Economy

The post-literacy era is a time when direct experience becomes more important than text. This shift is driven by new economic models. Shoshana Zuboff describes surveillance capitalism, where data about our emotions and reactions is the most valuable raw material. Other researchers speak of affective capitalism – a market where not information, but influence over moods, is traded.

The foundation of these phenomena is the attention economy. According to Herbert Simon's principle, "a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." In a world of data overload, it is not access to knowledge, but our ability to focus, that has become the most valuable and limited resource. Digital empires, therefore, do not compete on content quality, but wage war for every second of our gaze.

Consequences for Culture and Society

Digital platforms manipulate our attention to maximize profits. Their algorithms promote extreme, controversial, and emotionally charged content because these are what sustain our engagement the longest. This leads to the fragmentation of consciousness and the disintegration of the common ground for public debate. Institutions built on the logic of writing – such as schools, universities, or traditional media – are experiencing a profound crisis, unable to compete with the power of digital stimuli.

As a result, education becomes a spectacle vying for student focus, and art and science undergo transformation. Long-form content requiring contemplation gives way to memes, infographics, and TV series. Writing does not disappear, but becomes marginalized, turning into a tool for elites, similar to Latin in the Middle Ages.

Global Facets and the Future of the Civilization of Experience

The philosophical consequences are fundamental: truth becomes performative – what attracts attention exists. Freedom is the ability to protect one's own focus. Different civilizations adapt to these changes differently: the West grapples with polarization, China centrally manages attention as a resource, and Russia treats it as an information battlefield. There also emerges the art of direct transfer – technology delivering experiences directly to the senses, which raises new ethical challenges related to manipulation.

The future of civilization could unfold in two directions. Either we become a dual society, with the masses immersed in a culture of experiences and elite enclaves of writing, or we learn to manage attention, creating a culture based on empathy. Thinkers from Arendt to Zuboff warn that our subjectivity and capacity for rational dialogue are at stake.

Conclusion

We are entering an era of adjectives. Qualities become more important than things, and experiences more valuable than narratives. This is a pivotal civilizational shift, where politics becomes the art of orchestrating emotions, the economy a market of affects, and identity a catalog of fleeting sensations. In this new world, we transition from logos to pathos, from reading to immersion. The key question is: how do we live in a world where things are merely pretexts for intensity?

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the "Post-Writing Era" and what are its main features?

The "post-writing era" is a period in which the dominance of text is giving way to a culture of experiences and instantaneous stimuli. It is characterized by high-intensity stimuli with minimal cognitive effort, as evidenced by the popularity of platforms like TikTok and virtual reality.

How does the "attention economy" work and why does writing have no chance in it?

The attention economy treats human attention as its most valuable resource, and digital platforms ruthlessly compete for human eye time. Writing, requiring sustained attention, is too slow in the face of instantaneous dopamine rewards and algorithms that maximize time spent online.

How does Shoshana Zuboff's "surveillance capitalism" relate to the post-literate era?

Surveillance capitalism is a system in which data about our experiences and emotions becomes the raw material for monetization. In a post-literate era, where emotions are more easily measured in images than in text, platforms are investing in affect-capture technologies to more precisely analyze and predict our reactions.

What are the consequences of the post-literate era for education and how can schools adapt?

Educational systems designed for the age of writing are becoming anachronistic, teaching the logic of long texts while children operate within the logic of fragments. Schools must shift from imparting knowledge to "training character," using performative methods, simulation games, and virtual reality to preserve knowledge through spectacle.

Can art and science survive in an era dominated by short bursts and instant rewards?

Art and science, traditionally demanding sustained attention, are undergoing a transformation. Art is adapting to collage and viral forms, while science is adapting to concise reports and "sciencetainment." They can survive if they learn to play with the logic of the fragment, gaining mass influence, but they risk being reduced to marketing and shallow entertainment.

What is "attention capital" and what role does it play in digital society?

Attention capital is a concept that defines an individual's position in digital culture based on the amount of aggregate attention they can attract. Influencers possessing high attention capital can monetize it, transform it into prestige, and even real political power, demonstrating their crucial role in the new social hierarchy.