EVERYWHERE, U.S.A. — In what privacy experts are calling "the most predictable development since influencers discovered therapy-speak," reading has officially been declared a "suspiciously private activity" by the same demographic that voluntarily shares location data with 47 apps, photographs of their children, and detailed records of their breakfast preferences with the entire internet.

The controversy began when Amazon notified a local woman that she had read "8 Kindle books since September"—what company representatives described as "a celebration of customer engagement" and what behavioral analysts immediately flagged as "a soft biometric scan of a household's remaining attention span."

"I have also read at least 10 physical books," the woman responded, in what experts later classified as "an unlicensed display of depth" and "a suspiciously high-volume relationship with paper."

Her mother's response—"Common sense"—has since been analyzed by seventeen think tanks, none of whom could agree on what the phrase means but all of whom have secured funding to study it further.

The Smooth Brain Initiative

Within hours of the incident going viral—through forces "nobody could technically prove weren't magical"—marketing firms and public health-adjacent nonprofits began pitching what insiders call a "destigmatize-everything-except-thinking" rollout.

Draft slogans seen in early campaign materials include:

• SMOOTH IS BEAUTIFUL
• WRINKLES ARE FOR LAUNDRY, NOT THINKING
• KEEP YOUR THOUGHTS STREAMLINED FOR FASTER FEED INTEGRATION
• BE THE PERSON AN ALGORITHM CAN LOVE WITHOUT TRYING

One concept deck proposes a new BMI-style metric—Brain Mass Index—to help citizens track "surface area creep" before it becomes socially visible. Another recommends equating brain ripples to obesity, a comparison reviewers praised as "scientifically incorrect in a way that will feel emotionally accurate to the right demographic."

Fahrenheit 454, But Eco-Friendly

The campaign arrives amid alarming reports that reading is down 40%—a trend analysts say makes society "dramatically easier to manage."

"They don't need to burn books like in Fahrenheit 454," said one cultural strategist, referencing the classic novel in which firefighters bravely protect literature by incinerating it and then posting a reaction video. "They can just give everyone TikTok, and moths and bookworms will do the job, which is far more ecologically friendly."

Environmental groups praised the "closed-loop literacy disposal system," noting that outsourcing book destruction to insects dramatically reduces carbon emissions compared to traditional authoritarian bonfires, while also creating meaningful employment for moths who previously faced stigma for "eating knowledge."

"I Cannot Prove An iPhone Isn't Magic"

Complicating the national response is the growing realization that nobody can actually explain anything anymore—particularly not without sounding like a wizard begging to be audited.

"For example, I cannot prove an iPhone isn't magic," said one citizen, speaking from the exhausted middle class of modern epistemology, where your options are either "trust specialists" or "become one by Tuesday."

He went on to explain that in an age of massive specialized knowledge, society increasingly defaults to an appeal-to-authority pipeline that starts with "surely there's no conspiracy about how iPhones work" and ends with "just fudge that into politics," at which point people begin trusting whatever sounds most like confidence.

"It's part of how everything got out of control," he said, describing a culture in which citizens outsource reality verification the way they outsource directions, dinner, and the will to read anything longer than a caption.

Amazon Denies Everything, Announces Everything

Amazon representatives insisted the reading report was intended as "a celebration of customer engagement" and not, as critics claim, "a soft biometric scan of a household's remaining attention span."

Still, internal sources confirmed that future versions of the report may include additional features, such as:

• A "Smoothness Score" indicating how likely your opinions are to be pre-approved by your social group
• A "Ripple Alert" that triggers when you finish a book containing subordinate clauses
• A "Common Sense" button that automatically replies to complex statements without reading them

At press time, the woman's mother was reportedly seen continuing her day normally, while the rest of the nation argued online about whether reading is a virtue, a threat, or simply a hobby best kept private—like journaling, independent thought, and any emotion that cannot be monetized.

Contributing: The Associated Press, Reuters, That One Guy On Twitter Who Seems Confident, Your Mom