Perhaps at the end of this century, two classes of men will be distinguished: some formed by television and others by reading.

Deep attention versus constant distraction

There's something oddly prescient about this observation, even if the specific technology has shifted. We're not really divided by television versus books anymore—we're divided by depth versus speed, by the kind of attention we've trained ourselves to keep.

When you read, especially longer pieces, you're forced into a kind of sustained focus that rewires how you think. You follow complex arguments, sit with ambiguity, make connections across pages. Television, and now scrolling through feeds, trains a different skill: pattern recognition at speed, emotional reaction over contemplation, the ability to process fragments. Neither is inherently bad, but they do shape what you notice, what you assume is important, and how patient you are with difficulty.

The real divide isn't really about the medium anymore. It's about whether you've built the habit of deep attention or whether your attention span has been continuously interrupted and fragmented. Some people read tweets and articles on screens with complete focus; others skim books. The question is less about what you consume and more about how much resistance you've cultivated against the pull toward constant, shallow stimulation. That choice—which takes real effort now—might be the more honest distinction between two kinds of minds.