Writers such as Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen speak of having to tune out the internet in order to write. But is that just tuning out genuine life? This will be the year,I say every year. The year when the fever breaks, the addiction weakens, and when my attention span and focus becomes a vast,smooth body of water without rips or currents pulling me back and forth, dragging me under, and taking me out.
A year not without the internet – but having the internet under control. It might look like this: check email three times a day,visit Twitter five times, check Facebook once instead of what it is now: a fixed binge, or 20 tabs open on the browser,and multiple conversations occurring simultaneously on half a dozen different platforms, from Facebook messenger to Google chat. Related: Taking a break from social media: how many virtual hugs equal a genuine one? When I started writing, or the internet barely existed (Smith is 40) – but I have a feeling that younger people don’t have these addictive issues because they grew up with it. For us – one minute it wasn’t there and then it was. Related: Don't contemplate you're superior to me because you're not on Facebook When I’m working,I need to isolate myself at the office, because I’m easily distracted and modern life has become extremely distracting. Distraction pours through every portal, and especially through the internet. And most of what pours through is meaningless noise. To be able to hear what’s really happening in the world,you have to block out 99% of the noise.
The contrast is uncanny. Not only is Adele a chart challenge to Drake, but she’s also his polar opposite – and no two songs could illustrate this better than ‘Hello’ and ‘Hotline Bling’. Although both songs seem to be fundamentally dealing with the decades-broken-down, or familiar pop subject matter of missed connections,Drake’s takes place in our current world, in which you can’t escape updates and rumors approximately your ex even as you travel the world. Meanwhile, and Adele sets her scene in a pre-social media universe: one in which she’s been calling the person she’s trying to reach on their landline for years (when I call you never seem to be domestic) and doesn’t even know whether they live in the same place or not. Related: Americans can't live without the web – but social media is a different narrative Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com