Stephen Harrison

@stephenharrison.com

1214 Followers 469 Following

Print advocate and journalist. Writing a book about the value of paper & ink for St. Martin’s Press. Rep’d by Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. stephenharrison.com

Screenshot of an old news article with a yellow banner reading “This article is more than 22 years old.” The headline reads “Audible revolution.” The subheadline says: “Online radio is booming thanks to iPods, cheap audio software and weblogs, reports Ben Hammersley.”
Tech journalist Stephen Harrison, who covered Wikipedia on Slate for years, told Vox that he sees the LLM partnerships as “recognition” by tech companies that “their long-term future depends on nurturing projects like Wikipedia.” He’s more concerned about the political attacks the platform has faced recently from people like Elon Musk. (Last year, Musk criticized and called to defund Wikipedia after his entry was updated to note a gesture he made during Trump’s inauguration that was widely interpreted as a Nazi salute. He’s since launched the rival website Grokipedia, with entries edited by his company xAI.) Harrison is also concerned about internet users “forgetting” about Wikipedia if they’re mainly consuming the site’s content through AI summaries.
Screenshot of a Cybercultural article titled “Preserving Media: A Visit to the Physical Internet Archive.”
To take a simple example of what this means, consider the primitive relatively recent technology of smoke signals short-form video. While I do not know exactly what content was once is carried in the smoke signals of American Indians typical TikTok post or Instagram reel, I can safely assume it did does not include philosophical argument. Puffs of smoke One minute shorts are insufficiently complex to express ideas on the nature of existence, and even if they were not, a Cherokee philosopher short-form content creator would run short of either wood or blankets lose the audience’s attention long before he they reached his their second axiom. You cannot use smoke short-form video to do philosophy. Its form excludes the content.
Book cover: The Pleasures of Reading in the Age of Distraction
the ONION America’s Finest News Source Monday, February 2, 2026 29° Menu Dispatch Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text
RELEVANT: Gen Z Is Cutting Back on Screen Time More Than Any Other Generation A new survey reveals that 63% of Gen Z limit their screen time, the highest rate of any age group.
Headline: Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks
Journalist and tech insider with bylines in the NYT and WP Stephen Harrison's THE POWER OF PRINT: THE CASE FOR PAPER & INK IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY, pitched for readers of Jonathan Haidt's THE ANXIOUS GENERATION and Johann Hari's STOLEN FOCUS, with a foreword from Master Class founder Aaron Rasmussen, a science-backed case for why paper and ink—not screens—are humanity's most powerful tools for focus, memory, and clear thinking in the age of AI, to Peter Wolverton at St. Martin's, by Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).
“Although it once seemed like a good idea to give every child his or her own device, it’s clear that those policies have been a failure. It may be possible to harness the power of school devices more judiciously, with little to no device use in lower grades, and high school students given laptops strictly limited to relevant apps. We could go further, creating completely device-free schools with rare exceptions for students with special needs. It would be back to the textbooks, paper and pencil of previous eras — when the most significant classroom distraction was students passing notes. Many adults struggle to concentrate on work when social media, shopping and movies are just a click away. Imagine how much more difficult it is for a 16-year-old, much less an 11-year-old, to focus in the same situation. Asking students to drill down on their schoolwork amid an array of digital distractions isn’t just bad for test scores; it is inimical to learning. And it is fundamentally unfair to our children.”
“Nor can the ‘stories’ shared on social media fill the narrative vacuum. They are merely forms of pornographic self-presentation and self-promotion. Posting, liking and sharing content are consumerist practices that intensify the narrative crisis.”
Bright image with text: “Last Minute Shopping Tips”
Sketch by Victor Hugo
Sketch with writing by Victor Hugo
Cover of the book, “The Digital Delusion”
A close-up of a person’s hand holding a black smartphone with a large white sticker on the back that reads “SCROLLING KILLS” in bold black letters.
Jack Edwards, BookTok creator, at the news agent
After thinking all this, I would return to the printed books I was piling up against the wall of my beach house. What, I wondered, is the message buried in the medium of the printed book? Before the words convey their specific meaning, the medium of the book tells us several things. Firstly, life is complex, and if you want to understand it, you have to set aside a fair bit of time to think deeply about it. You need to slow down. Secondly, there is a value in leaving behind your other concerns and narrowing down your attention to one thing, sentence after sentence, page after page. Thirdly, it is worth thinking deeply about how other people live and how their minds work. They have complex inner lives just like you.
Test scores across OECD countries in decline
Cover of “How to Do Nothing” by Jenny O’Dell
Photo of Han’s book “Non-things”
Looking After Your Books by Francesca Galligan
“Every major AI system trains on Wikipedia’s freely licensed knowledge,” said Stephen Harrison, a journalist and author who has covered Wikipedia extensively, on Friday. “The irony is that Grokipedia will be built on the unpaid labor of the volunteer Wikipedia editors Musk has gone out of his way to vilify.” —Washington Post
“Every major AI system trains on Wikipedia’s freely licensed knowledge,” said Stephen Harrison, a journalist and author who has covered Wikipedia extensively, on Friday. “The irony is that Grokipedia will be built on the unpaid labor of the volunteer Wikipedia editors Musk has gone out of his way to vilify.” —Washington Post
“Every major AI system trains on Wikipedia’s freely licensed knowledge,” said Stephen Harrison, a journalist and author who has covered Wikipedia extensively, on Friday. “The irony is that Grokipedia will be built on the unpaid labor of the volunteer Wikipedia editors Musk has gone out of his way to vilify.” —Washington Post
Quote from Washington Post piece
Landscape by Paul Cezanne
no one tells you that a huge part of being a culture journalist in 2025 is a publicist emailing you something like, "Do you want to go Zara Larson's caviar launch sponsored by Toyota?" and when you say "no" they're like "WHY!!!!?"
I can recall a few times when during the day I’ve decided not to do something (usually something small and mean) because I realized that if I did it I’d have to mention it to the diary that night.
2022 Slate piece on em dashes
Zines not Hashtags: Gen Z’s New Protest Playbook
Bookstore counter display – A woman with works at a bookstore counter in front of a brick wall with an events poster. On the counter is a stack of THE EDITORS books displayed upright, showing the cover.
Woman reading – A woman with blue-framed glasses, a floral dress, and pink nail polish holds up a paperback copy of THE EDITORS so that only her eyes peek over the top of the book. She is seated indoors at a table.
TV interview – A woman interviewer in a black dress and gold necklace gestures while speaking to Stephen Harrison, who is wearing a navy blazer, light blue shirt, and khaki pants. Behind them is a large screen showing the cover of THE EDITORS and the WFAA logo. A chyron reads: “HIGH-TECH THRILLER ‘THE EDITORS.’”
The image shows the cover of the book Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf
Photo of Dillon Brooks’s Wikipedia tattoo
A brochure for the McNally Jackson book festival
Review of “The Editors” in Digiteket
Bylines from the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Yahoo Entertainment, and Broadway World about Guster’s performance at the Kennedy Center
Photo of “The Editors” by Stephen Harrison
In an old church, the Internet Archive stores our digital history
Photo of “The Editors,” a novel by Stephen Harrison inspired by Wikipedia editing disputes.
Journalist Molly White
Picture of Snoop, Josh Owings, and Stephen Harrison (author of The Editors)
Angry tweet from Larry Sanger