[BrenBarn]

Whether or not the decline of literacy is a pearl-clutching myth, I don't think anything is gained by laying on a bunch of academic mumbo-jumbo about "literacies" and "problematizing" things and contextualization and how everything is more complex and nuanced than we realize. That kind of theorizing takes us further from knowing about reality rather than closer.

In particular, trying to repurpose words like "literacy" from their typical usage into some kind of broad and encompassing notion is a classic and classically frustrating maneuver of a certain kind of academic. It leads us to a world where we have a bunch of words that are all supposed to mean "a complex interplay between the individual, society, technology, and whatever else I feel like tossing in", and then we can argue about the differences between them. I'd rather skip that.

Saying that "literacy" includes everything people need to do to navigate in society is like saying that "music" includes making armpit noises. Yes, maybe you can stretch it to include that, but that's not what people use it to mean and it's not what people are talking about when they say literacy is declining. No one is going go "Oh gosh, you're right, people are now learning about 'navigating a social media platform' and 'producing a video essay' so I guess there's no literacy crisis at all!" People know that's happening, they just don't consider it literacy, and trying to redefine literacy to include it is just sophistry.

[everybodyknows]

> trying to redefine literacy to include it is just sophistry.

Or an angle toward one's doctoral dissertation in some "social science" or other.