At the core of literary fiction lies empathy, the human need to understand perspectives that differ from ours. Yet today, with the rise of short-form content, you can access millions of perspectives faster and more conveniently on your phone. From podcasts and web novels, to even storytimes on TikTok, digital media has revolutionised storytelling. At the same time, it’s raised familiar concerns about whether literary fiction still holds primacy in our culture.
I’ve never fully understood why the perceived ‘death of the novel’ is so often linked to the rise of digital media and the decline of print. If the traditional novel truly offers something digital media can’t replace, then it should only enforce the novel’s irreplaceable place in our culture. Why, then, do we keep theorising over the doomed end of traditional literature?
A lot of the literary theorists who engage with the discourse surrounding the ‘death of the novel’, as Liesel Schillinger writes in the New York Times, “yearn to find in contemporary literature the strong resonance they felt with the books that shaped their first sensibilities”. This sense of nostalgia, which Schilinger refers to as a yearning for a pre-digital era represents a hopeful return to the ‘golden age of literature’ or the reemergence of classical literary aesthetics. The dangers of romanticising classical antiquity aside, realistically, such a revival is impossible because novels, like all art forms, naturally evolve with technology and cultural shifts.
Though many of us long for a pre-online era, when reading held a more identifiable place in our culture, we can’t deny the accessibility that digitalised literature grants us. Unlike the times of print media domination, authors no longer need to rely on traditional publishing to share stories. The myth that younger generations have permanently traded novels for doom-scrolling sessions is misconstrued; the rise of digital media has only expanded literary engagement, particularly among Gen Z readers, just in ways we aren’t used to recognising. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have formed subcultures like ‘BookTok’ which have become accessible tools for promoting literature, even aiding independent writers, once underrepresented, who can now gain exposure and recognition for their work.
This challenges us to consider whether literary critics are truly concerned for the diminishing cultural role of the novel, or if they have a hesitancy for change due to digital media’s increasing popularity. These theorists often have a classical perception of authorship potentially rooted in the fear of reinvention and a similar nostalgic yearning Schilinger described. The latter aligns with the theorists Schillinger describes as nostalgic, who often retain a classical notion of authorship that rejects newer forms. Theorists who, unlike many of us, wouldn’t consider a tweet as literary genius.
Digital culture calls for a group consciousness and fast-paced connectivity, misaligning with the novel’s need for solitary introspection and slow-paced narratives. Literary trends now mirror the same algorithmic formulas social media prioritises: it’s why we see the same ‘airplane novel’, usually written to be read in one sitting with a profitable, bite-sized narrative structure, accustomed to our mass consumption of short-form content.
As much as we’d like to blame it on phones or our gradually declining attention spans, the novel has been declared dead or slowly dying by notorious literary critics for almost over a century. Despite its state of survival, the cultural decline of reading literary fiction has resulted in an anxious anticipation for its end. This nostalgia-induced anxiety in turn produces the urgency needed to preserve literary values. The threat of the erasure of literature is what I believe will ultimately keep literary fiction immortalised, as we recognise how irreplaceable the traditional novel is.
