Paolo, could you elaborate on how you believe technology, the attention economy, the sheer volume of apps, and diversity are contributing to a rise in "new" forms of functional illiteracy? How do these factors exacerbate the symptoms and challenges you often discuss?

AUTHOR : Paolo Maria Pavan

Co-Founder of Xtroverso | Visionary Entrepreneur

Paolo Maria Pavan is the driving force behind Xtroverso, combining compliance knowledge and strategy to empower entrepreneurs. With a bold vision for the future of work, his insights challenge norms and inspire innovation.

The digital world we live in—the technology, the attention economy, the endless app ecosystems, the relentless noise—it’s not just changing how we live, but how we process and understand the world. And here's the twist: all this innovation, meant to make us “smarter” and more connected, is actually breeding a new generation of functional illiterates.

We’ve got a society running on information overload. Notifications, ads, pop-ups, messages—it’s a constant barrage, pulling our focus in a hundred different directions. We’re expected to juggle work apps, social media, emails, texts, all while processing a never-ending stream of updates. This level of fragmented attention isn’t just exhausting; it’s creating a whole new form of illiteracy—a generation struggling to deeply engage, to comprehend at more than a surface level.

And let’s talk about apps. Every day, there’s a new platform, a new “solution,” a new shortcut. We’re drowning in choice and functionality, but how much of it do we really understand? People are picking up one app after another, never really mastering any of them, learning just enough to get by. They’re functionally literate within the bounds of a single screen but lost in the larger world of critical, cross-platform thinking.

This is a digital era form of functional illiteracy, one that’s harder to recognize. You can use social media like a pro but struggle to read a long-form article without drifting off. You can juggle messages across apps but feel paralyzed when asked to comprehend or produce complex ideas. Technology, in its sheer quantity and diversity, has created a population that’s well-versed in snippets, in soundbites, in the surface-level—and profoundly lacking in the deeper skills required to analyze, question, and integrate information.

And then there’s the attention economy. Everything today is designed to hijack our focus, to keep us scrolling, clicking, buying. Our brains have adapted to seek out that next dopamine hit instead of diving deep. We’re breeding a functional illiteracy of patience—people who are quick to skim but struggle with anything requiring sustained mental engagement. We’re losing the skill of focus, of critical thinking, and that doesn’t just affect individuals; it’s impacting entire workplaces, entire industries.

As entrepreneurs, leaders, visionaries, we have to recognize this. We can’t ignore that our own teams may be slipping into this new digital functional illiteracy, where people are competent in a superficial way but struggle with complexity, depth, or critical analysis. And as leaders, we have to find ways to pull people out of that shallow, fast-paced rhythm. We need to cultivate an environment that encourages focus, that respects deep thinking, that allows people the space to really engage with their work, not just skim over it.

Our job isn’t just to keep up with the pace of innovation but to recognize where that pace is actually leaving people behind. Technology, if we’re not careful, is going to breed an army of functional illiterates—people who know how to use tools without ever learning how to wield them meaningfully. We need to create spaces where depth, patience, and true literacy—the ability to think deeply, understand fully, and communicate clearly—are honored and nurtured.

It’s on us, as entrepreneurs, to shift from seeing technology as an endless race and start treating it as a tool. Let’s teach our teams, let’s teach ourselves, to step back, to engage, to read, to comprehend, to connect meaningfully. Because if we don’t, we’re not just creating a generation of functional illiterates—we’re creating a world that’s too shallow to understand itself. And that? That’s a failure we cannot afford.