Tiago Pinhal

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

The Atlantic’s new cover story by @rosehorowitch is absolutely definitive on the end of the age of reading in America—and the emergence of a new post-literate age in modern life

Some core facts and anecdotes:

1. Reading is shrinking. The share of Americans who read for pleasure declined by 43 percent between 2004 and 2023. While Americans might see more words than ever—between all those texts, posts, emails, and captions—less than half of Americans read books, anymore. The average sentence in NYT bestsellers are one-third shorter than a century ago.

2. Americans can swallow words and sentences, but they’re losing the ability to think deeply about writing that’s longer than an Instagram post. Nearly 30 percent of American adults cannot paraphrase or make inferences from a multipage text. In 2017, that number was less than 20 percent.

3. It’s worse for the young. Fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores have slid for the past decade. From 1984 to 2025, the percentage of 13-year-olds who said they rarely or never read for fun rose from 8 to 29 percent.

4. “Every year older a child gets, the less they like to read”: Most high-schoolers consider reading for pleasure an alien practice. Margaret Rennix, Harvard’s assistant director for humanities and social-sciences support, says some students view reading as an unnecessarily burdensome way of acquiring knowledge. “By asking them to read,” she said, it's as if “professors are arbitrarily withholding information from students by forcing them to get it through this more difficult medium.”

https://t.co/kk8qktY6fd

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Why did our ruling class not invest in decarbonising faster to avoid this acceleration in deadly heatwaves that scientists warned would come? Because of the capitalist law of value.

Capital invests in what is most profitable to capital, rather than what is most necessary for humanity, so our ruling class keeps ploughing investment into fossil fuels and SUVs, while we get far too little in renewables and public transit, even while the world burns around us.

We have more than enough capacity (labour, factories, technology) to address the climate crisis, but as long as capital controls investment and production we are prevented from doing it.

We are trapped by the capitalist law of value, living in a miserable shadow of the world we could have.

[Pete Buttigieg @PeteButtigieg]

This week someone targeted my family for harm with a false report. We’re physically OK, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t harmed. I am beyond furious.

Whatever your politics, this is awful, wrong, and can never become normal. https://t.co/72wxaVLzVT

[Jill Tucker @jilltucker]

If you ever doubt how magical this world is, one day you will decide to go to a World Cup watch party in Oakland that you found online to root for a country where you spent two years trying to coax English out of the mouths of Cape Verdean teenagers. 1/7

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

How can anyone still support this Israeli govt when psychopathic monsters like Ben Gvir are ministers in it, advocating genocide in Lebanon? Disgusting.

[Danny Boy @Care2much18]

This is the dumbest tweet ever written by an American, an astonishing achievement given the depth of competition for that accolade.

It's hard to know where to even start.

I'll go from the top and try wade through it, to arrive at where the focus should already be. /1

[Tiago Pinhal @TiagoPinhal]

https://t.co/A8NmX1tDOp

[Alec Karakatsanis @equalityAlec]

Everyone should read what the Israeli military did to journalist Amal Khalil today in this minute-by-minute account as the international community watched in horror. First the text messages threatening her then trapping her and a photographer in a house then bombing them then firing on international rescue crews, all with the world watching in real time. There are no words left for the horrors that U.S. political leaders are enabling.

[NASA Earth @NASAEarth]

That's us! 🌍

The Artemis II crew captured beautiful, high-resolution images of our home planet during their journey to the Moon. As @Astro_Christina put it: "You guys look great."

[SIC Notícias @SICNoticias]

Rui Tavares, durante o debate parlamentar desta quarta-feira, criticou o “historial brilhante” de nomeações do Chega. Perante a reação ruidosa do partido liderado por André Ventura, Aguiar-Branco interveio para dizer que a bancada do Chega "tem de ouvir" o que é dito.

Saiba mais aqui: https://t.co/6C7Z3t2cvX

#chega #livre #ruitavares #aguiarbranco #andreventura #news #politica #portugal #sicnoticias #fy #foryou

[a_john @a_john]

este artigo tem 12 anos https://t.co/fUadvfK8Ib

[Bruno Maçães @MacaesBruno]

I wrote a personal essay on what it has meant for me witnessing events in Gaza since October 2023. I would be grateful if you help spread it. These were painful, disturbing conclusions to reach. But inescapable…

[Sasha @servingcapreal]

the John Oliver team currently debating how much prison time they want to serve for their next episode

[Francisco Pereira Coutinho @fpcoutinho78]

O autoproclamado exército mais moral do mundo, pelos vistos, considera proporcional matar seis civis para eliminar um jornalista que alega pertencer ao Hamas. Qual foi exatamente a vantagem militar concreta que justificou mais este crime de guerra? https://t.co/fgWtJB9IaF

[Bruno Maçães @MacaesBruno]

A journalist in Gaza reports on a starving child just before being assassinated in cold blood by those doing the starving. We are witnessing horrors seldom seen before

[Bruno Maçães @MacaesBruno]

His final message. Anas Al Sharif was probably the most important journalist reporting from Gaza these two years. I always found him reliable and factual. He he has just been assassinated by Israel

[António Guterres @antonioguterres]

On #WorldRefugeeDay, we recognize the millions of people forced to flee war, persecution & disaster.

Becoming a refugee is never a choice.

But how we respond is.

Let's choose solidarity.

Let's choose courage.

Let's choose humanity.

[RTP Notícias @RTPNoticias]

No discurso do Dia de Portugal, Lídia Jorge, presidente da comissão organizadora, relembrou o passado esclavagista de Portugal e a atualidade da obra de Camões, que viveu num fim de ciclo, tal como aquele em que o país se encontra atualmente.

🔗 https://t.co/MAMCicgzrf

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Everyone seems to be taking this as the new normal, but it's worth keeping in mind how insane and dangerous it is for the president of the United States to be openly threatening a private citizen over potential political activity.

[fcancio @fcancio]

quero mudar a alma do país, diz ventura. não é que não tenhamos sido avisados. https://t.co/CbujrAQB4Q