Yes. The proliferation of mass technology, especially digital media, is poisoning something at the heart of what allows people to make good art—something that has to with the way we relate to our narratives, personal and collective, own and other.

It's not just books; every creative field is suffering in this way except arguably television, which is holding on longer than the rest, to a large extent by cannibalizing resources from them (books, music, etc.) as they deteriorate.