14% of Americans can’t read according to a LiveScience article.

Increased illiteracy is certainly an effective way of dumbing down people and prevent them from accessing alternative information and forming independent opinion.

It is logical to draw the conclusion from the study that audio and visual media may actually increase rather than loose influence vis-à-vis the internet.

So how can the problem be solved?

Google recently presented some sort of remedy to the problem by introducing voice search for mobile devices. Now we only have to wait for voice replies from a voice search.

While waiting, we can still listen to good talk radio shows.