I don’t quite share your optimism over the benign effects of some of our technologies, especially smartphones, but I think your piece was quite devilishly funny, and it definitely made me think about all this afresh, so thanks. I would encourage you not to be so fish-ist though. Your obvious bigotry toward goldfish with your “gormless-looking fish” was simply unacceptable in such a noble, politically correct forum as Unherd. For some reason this put me into a strangely delicious state where I felt both a protective fondness for goldfish – a new one for me – and a guilty inability to stop giggling. Excellent stuff!
Were you paying attention? I don’t see where he glamorizes technology but quite a historical account of our perspective as a collective to the technologies of any particular time
Perhaps my wording was unclear to you. I never said he “glamorised” tech (can’t quite see where you got that one – were you paying attention? Forgive me, that was indeed a little snarky). I was trying to say that I think the smartphone may well have some of the claimed negative effects in the article, although the author seemed to be doubting this. However, I’m open to be persuaded otherwise.
I don’t quite share your optimism over the benign effects of some of our technologies, especially smartphones, but I think your piece was quite devilishly funny, and it definitely made me think about all this afresh, so thanks.
I would encourage you not to be so fish-ist though. Your obvious bigotry toward goldfish with your “gormless-looking fish” was simply unacceptable in such a noble, politically correct forum as Unherd. For some reason this put me into a strangely delicious state where I felt both a protective fondness for goldfish – a new one for me – and a guilty inability to stop giggling. Excellent stuff!
Were you paying attention? I don’t see where he glamorizes technology but quite a historical account of our perspective as a collective to the technologies of any particular time
Perhaps my wording was unclear to you. I never said he “glamorised” tech (can’t quite see where you got that one – were you paying attention? Forgive me, that was indeed a little snarky). I was trying to say that I think the smartphone may well have some of the claimed negative effects in the article, although the author seemed to be doubting this. However, I’m open to be persuaded otherwise.
I wish I had time to read all of the following studies, and maybe study their methods more, but a quick reading says they prove that there is a relation between the decrease of attention and internet addiction:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2004.01290.x
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1408-x
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X07000936
And those are just a few of them that I could find right now.