To not sound too old, I won’t utter the standard ‘you describe the sad, mentally distressed and anti-social screen addicted kids I see all day everyday nowadays’ confirmation. Rather, I’ll admit to a comparison: as a 42 year old editor/journalist for a strictly online, mostly satirical news magazine who has been active and working online…
To not sound too old, I won’t utter the standard ‘you describe the sad, mentally distressed and anti-social screen addicted kids I see all day everyday nowadays’ confirmation. Rather, I’ll admit to a comparison: as a 42 year old editor/journalist for a strictly online, mostly satirical news magazine who has been active and working online for almost two decades now, I’ve not so much seen myself (a teenager from the analogue age of payphones, MTV and compact discs) turn into the mental mess “you kids nowadays” tend too often to be, but more into a state of permanent nostalgia - and not necessarily the good kind, but much more a sort of sad, depressed version of it. The once mostly satirical news blog (very well-read in my home country for over 20 years, both by fans and critics - or haters - alike), reflects this mood and has slowly but markably lost some, if not a lot of its satirical stance, to become some sort of daily news feed that is embedded in that sense of (sombre, despondent) nostalgia while always ready to fire up the instant outrage that seems to be an inevitable “requirement” of social media driven current events reporting these days.
I not only miss the older, slower, more thoughtful internet you as a younger man than I am never even witnessed, I also increasingly miss the person I myself used to be when that stream of information was already flowing fast, but definitely far slower and less lateral than it is today. And my wife and I, too, are trying harder to find “our Midland” in the way we live our tech-ridden lives. We even moved from the digitally dense Netherlands to slower, more analogue south of Portugal. I guess what I’m trying to say is: if I had known at your age what I know now, I hope I would have done back then what you did now. Because tech and screens have become inevitable, but only we ourselves can prevent them from becoming all-consuming. To end on a lighter note: it is one of the reasons why I spend more time on Substack: to get back into *reading*, and les into an instant response modus that demands more (mental) energy than it can ever recharge or give back.
Anyway, good luck on chipping away at your screen time and keep wielding that ax. Best wishes from the south of Europe.
I am a bit older than you, but I agree with your assessment of what the current voracious level of the internet age has wreaked upon us. My other thought is that strictly on-line work and most certainly, remote work, is not the best way for a society to conduct itself. We need in-real-time associations in an office with live human beings. We are by nature herd animals and we need to spend time with that herd toiling and playing and interacting spontaneously together.
To not sound too old, I won’t utter the standard ‘you describe the sad, mentally distressed and anti-social screen addicted kids I see all day everyday nowadays’ confirmation. Rather, I’ll admit to a comparison: as a 42 year old editor/journalist for a strictly online, mostly satirical news magazine who has been active and working online for almost two decades now, I’ve not so much seen myself (a teenager from the analogue age of payphones, MTV and compact discs) turn into the mental mess “you kids nowadays” tend too often to be, but more into a state of permanent nostalgia - and not necessarily the good kind, but much more a sort of sad, depressed version of it. The once mostly satirical news blog (very well-read in my home country for over 20 years, both by fans and critics - or haters - alike), reflects this mood and has slowly but markably lost some, if not a lot of its satirical stance, to become some sort of daily news feed that is embedded in that sense of (sombre, despondent) nostalgia while always ready to fire up the instant outrage that seems to be an inevitable “requirement” of social media driven current events reporting these days.
I not only miss the older, slower, more thoughtful internet you as a younger man than I am never even witnessed, I also increasingly miss the person I myself used to be when that stream of information was already flowing fast, but definitely far slower and less lateral than it is today. And my wife and I, too, are trying harder to find “our Midland” in the way we live our tech-ridden lives. We even moved from the digitally dense Netherlands to slower, more analogue south of Portugal. I guess what I’m trying to say is: if I had known at your age what I know now, I hope I would have done back then what you did now. Because tech and screens have become inevitable, but only we ourselves can prevent them from becoming all-consuming. To end on a lighter note: it is one of the reasons why I spend more time on Substack: to get back into *reading*, and les into an instant response modus that demands more (mental) energy than it can ever recharge or give back.
Anyway, good luck on chipping away at your screen time and keep wielding that ax. Best wishes from the south of Europe.
I am a bit older than you, but I agree with your assessment of what the current voracious level of the internet age has wreaked upon us. My other thought is that strictly on-line work and most certainly, remote work, is not the best way for a society to conduct itself. We need in-real-time associations in an office with live human beings. We are by nature herd animals and we need to spend time with that herd toiling and playing and interacting spontaneously together.