Why Do We Still Read Classics in the Age of Instagram?

Once upon a time, people waited for letters.

Now they wait for likes.

They once carried thick novels in their bags.
Now they carry phones that vibrate every eight minutes to remind them that someone, somewhere, has posted a photo of coffee.

And yet, strangely, stubbornly, irrationally…

People still read Pride and Prejudice.
They still open Hamlet.
They still struggle through Moby-Dick.
They still buy new editions of books written before electricity, before cinema, before memes, before Wi-Fi.

This raises an uncomfortable question.

In the age of Instagram, reels, shorts, stories, and disappearing attention spans…

Why do we still read classics at all?

The First Simple Answer: Because Stories Outlast Technology

Every generation thinks its technology is revolutionary.
And every generation is wrong.

Scroll back far enough and you will find:

• Oral storytelling around fires

• Handwritten manuscripts

• Printed books

• Newspapers

• Radio

• Television

• Cinema

• Internet

• Social media

Each new medium promised to replace the old.

None succeeded.

Stories simply changed clothes.

Instagram is not the enemy of literature.
It is just the latest costume in a very old drama.

Classics survive because they are not tied to any single format.

You can read The Odyssey on:

• papyrus

• paper

• Kindle

• phone

• audiobook

The medium keeps changing.
The human mind does not.

What Makes a Book a “Classic” Anyway?

Not age alone.

Plenty of old books are forgotten.
Age is cheap. Survival is expensive.

A classic is a book that:

• Is read by many generations

• Speaks to different cultures

• Raises questions that do not expire

• Still feels relevant after centuries

In simple words:

A classic is a book that refuses to die quietly.

Shakespeare is not alive because of the syllabus.
He is alive because jealousy, ambition, love, power, guilt, betrayal, and fear are still alive.

Instagram did not invent insecurity.
Jane Austen already wrote about it.

Social media did not invent narcissism.
Greek tragedy built entire plays around it.

Technology changes.
Human nature barely moves.

The Attention Span Myth

There is a popular complaint.

“People today have no attention span.”

This is only half true.

People today have selective attention spans.

They can binge-watch eight hours of a series.
They can scroll for three hours without blinking.
They can read thousands of comments on one post.

The problem is not attention.

The problem is depth tolerance.

Classics demand:

• slow reading

• delayed pleasure

• effort before reward

Instagram offers:

• instant stimulation

• quick emotion

• zero effort

So why do people still choose the harder path?

Because shallow pleasure gets boring fast.

Fast content entertains.
It does not satisfy.

And human beings, inconveniently, still crave satisfaction.

Classics Do Something Social Media Cannot

Instagram shows you life.
Classics explain it.

A reel can show heartbreak.
A novel can explore it.

A post can display ambition.
A tragedy can dissect it.

A photo can show loneliness.
A poem can inhabit it.

Classics are not about events.
They are about inner life.

And no algorithm has yet learned how to replace that.

Why Students Still Read Classics

Let us be honest.

Many students read classics not out of love, but out of fear.

Exams exist.
Syllabi exist.
Marks exist.

But something interesting happens.

A small percentage of students, against all odds, begin to enjoy them.

Why?

Because classics train the mind in ways modern content rarely does.

They teach:

• complex thinking

• long arguments

• layered characters

• moral ambiguity

• emotional patience

Reading a classic is mental weight training.

It is difficult.
It is slow.
It builds strength you did not know you had.

The Illusion of Modern Superiority

Every age believes it is smarter than the past.

This is historically inaccurate.

Plato debated democracy.
Shakespeare explored psychology.
Dostoevsky wrote about guilt and free will.
Austen dissected society with surgical precision.

These writers lived without Google.
They thought without Wikipedia.
They analyzed without podcasts.

And yet they produced minds that still challenge us.

Modernity gave us speed.
It did not automatically give us wisdom.

Classics Are Slow, and That Is Their Power

Instagram trains speed.

Classics train slowness.

This is not a weakness.
It is a counter-culture skill.

Slow reading develops:

• concentration

• memory

• interpretation

• emotional regulation

• patience

These are not fashionable skills.

They are essential ones.

A mind trained only on fast content becomes restless.
A mind trained on slow reading becomes resilient.

Why Adults Return to Classics Later in Life

An interesting pattern exists.

Many people hate classics in school.
And rediscover them in adulthood.

Why?

Because classics age with you.

At sixteen, Hamlet is boring.
At forty, it is disturbingly accurate.

At twenty, Anna Karenina is melodrama.
At fifty, it is tragic psychology.

Classics are not fixed texts.
They change because you change.

Instagram grows old fast.
Classics grow older with you.

The Role of Memory and Cultural Continuity

Classics perform another function.

They preserve cultural memory.

When we read classics, we inherit:

• old moral questions

• historical anxieties

• past dreams

• earlier mistakes

Without classics, each generation would start intellectually from zero.

Civilization does not progress by forgetting.
It progresses by remembering selectively.

Are Classics Elitist?

Sometimes.
Often unfairly accused.

The problem is not classics.
The problem is how they are taught.

When classics are presented as:

• sacred

• untouchable

• incomprehensible

They repel readers.

When they are presented as:

• human

• flawed

• emotionally alive

They attract them.

A classic is not a museum object.
It is a living conversation.

Why Instagram Has Not Killed Reading

Because reading fulfills needs that visuals cannot.

Instagram gives:

• stimulation

• comparison

• distraction

Reading gives:

• introspection

• imagination

• self-knowledge

Social media connects you to others.
Literature connects you to yourself.

Both will survive.
They serve different hungers.

The Quiet Reason We Still Read Classics

Here is the uncomfortable truth.

We still read classics because:

We are still confused.
We still fall in love badly.
We still chase power.
We still fear death.
We still search for meaning.

And we have not yet invented better answers.

Technology solved many problems.
It did not solve the problem of being human.

Classics remain our longest conversation with ourselves.

Final Thought

Instagram will change.
Platforms will vanish.
Trends will expire.

But as long as human beings:

• desire

• suffer

• hope

• fail

• love

They will continue to read books written by people who once did the same.

The age of Instagram did not end classics.

It merely proved that even in the noisiest century,
some minds still choose silence,
some hearts still choose depth,
and some readers still choose to listen to voices that refuse to fade.