This reminds me of James Marriott's analysis on the decline and even slow death of reading. I think it's gotten even worse than you point out in this lovely article, Matthew. Recently, I went to the cinema to get lost in a film, Nuremberg. The film was pretty poor, but what animated me more than anything else was a man checking his phone every 10-15 minutes. At one point, the AI even got going as it asked him what he wanted to search for. It was sooo distracting and took me out of my experience, where I just wanted to fall into the film.
Perhaps even worse was when I went to see Hans Zimmer's Next Level in Leeds. It was such a treat for me to see the great man live and get to experience his transformative music. Instead, everyone around me just had their phones out filming the experience. It could have spoiled my evening if the music and show overall hadn't been so breathtaking. It strikes me that we are not even able to get lost in experiences, but need to try and 're-live' them. It feels that we are increasingly unable to just live our lives.
As an author who does readings, I found this analysis quite true.
This reminds me of James Marriott's analysis on the decline and even slow death of reading. I think it's gotten even worse than you point out in this lovely article, Matthew. Recently, I went to the cinema to get lost in a film, Nuremberg. The film was pretty poor, but what animated me more than anything else was a man checking his phone every 10-15 minutes. At one point, the AI even got going as it asked him what he wanted to search for. It was sooo distracting and took me out of my experience, where I just wanted to fall into the film.
Perhaps even worse was when I went to see Hans Zimmer's Next Level in Leeds. It was such a treat for me to see the great man live and get to experience his transformative music. Instead, everyone around me just had their phones out filming the experience. It could have spoiled my evening if the music and show overall hadn't been so breathtaking. It strikes me that we are not even able to get lost in experiences, but need to try and 're-live' them. It feels that we are increasingly unable to just live our lives.
I think I wrote my last paper letter to a friend in 2010. Someone please shoot me now.
Love this.
I love this and love Clarissa. I'd love to see more reading events, selfishly, in Chicago.
I lament this, even if it's descriptive as a reaction against the direction that the development of social media and mobile computing took in society.