Use It, or Lose It

There are those who believe that the millennials are so mesmerized by their electronic toys that they no longer can compose, or comprehend, an English sentence. Abbreviations, phonetic spelling, and anacronyms abound in their personal communications, so much so that a block of text properly spelled and punctuated presents an almost Byzantine puzzle that defies their feeble efforts at decoding. Of course none of this has been proven, or even suggested, by scientific researchers, but that is no obstacle here. In the world of True Archives, we can take our anecdotal sampling of reading-challenged youngsters and extrapolate a future devoid of literate humans. Like the Eloi in "The Time Machine," those who come after us will be more akin to lotus eaters than ravenous scholars. What can be done about this abandonment of deep reading?