Craig Mod is a writer/sort-of-philosopher that I like. He’s spent quite a bit of effort wrestling with his relationship with his phone and with the Internet overall. He talks about that struggle on this podcast episode: https://hurryslowly.co/003-craig-mod/. He’s also written a bit about it, just search for “Craig Mod I want my attention back”. And yes, I realize the insidious circularity of turning to the internet to cure one’s addiction to the internet.
This year I’m turning my phone on aeroplane mode to keep it at bay and the first time it was for a few hours. When I finally turned it back on my daughter called me to check if I was ok and to let me know she had a panic attack because she couldn’t contact me. A lesson to us both I think!
On another note, I love the drawing by John-Paul Flintoff. So often in digital work, especially digital collage it it difficult to tell if it is analogue or not when reading it on a screen. Because I can see it is a digital drawing I feel a weird sense of relief, as if I can be confident that what I am seeing is real. But apart from this the colour and the atmosphere of the drawing is so alive.
I love how you've connected that work by Bruce Nauman with our relationship to our phones. I do find my relationship to my phone also a bit torturous, particularly when I'm feeling stressed. I check my phone way too often, and I flit between apps constantly. I do also yearn for a bit of quiet, but it's quite interesting to hear about the sounds of places like the Arctic that have nothing there except the elements. The noisiness of nothing but nature. Amazing video.
This absolutely speaks to me this post. I get a lot of pleasure and usefulness from the things I can do on my phone, listening to music, podcasts, checking email, taking photos, news etc That's all great. But I also have this burning desire to strip away much of the noise and get to some sort of simpler life. Maybe that's just a fantasy though. The video of those artists talking about the Arctic was wonderful. I've watched it three times. Great chat with John-Paul too.
Craig Mod is a writer/sort-of-philosopher that I like. He’s spent quite a bit of effort wrestling with his relationship with his phone and with the Internet overall. He talks about that struggle on this podcast episode: https://hurryslowly.co/003-craig-mod/. He’s also written a bit about it, just search for “Craig Mod I want my attention back”. And yes, I realize the insidious circularity of turning to the internet to cure one’s addiction to the internet.
This year I’m turning my phone on aeroplane mode to keep it at bay and the first time it was for a few hours. When I finally turned it back on my daughter called me to check if I was ok and to let me know she had a panic attack because she couldn’t contact me. A lesson to us both I think!
On another note, I love the drawing by John-Paul Flintoff. So often in digital work, especially digital collage it it difficult to tell if it is analogue or not when reading it on a screen. Because I can see it is a digital drawing I feel a weird sense of relief, as if I can be confident that what I am seeing is real. But apart from this the colour and the atmosphere of the drawing is so alive.
I love how you've connected that work by Bruce Nauman with our relationship to our phones. I do find my relationship to my phone also a bit torturous, particularly when I'm feeling stressed. I check my phone way too often, and I flit between apps constantly. I do also yearn for a bit of quiet, but it's quite interesting to hear about the sounds of places like the Arctic that have nothing there except the elements. The noisiness of nothing but nature. Amazing video.
This absolutely speaks to me this post. I get a lot of pleasure and usefulness from the things I can do on my phone, listening to music, podcasts, checking email, taking photos, news etc That's all great. But I also have this burning desire to strip away much of the noise and get to some sort of simpler life. Maybe that's just a fantasy though. The video of those artists talking about the Arctic was wonderful. I've watched it three times. Great chat with John-Paul too.
Thank you! It was a real pleasure to do that interview with you - highly recommended 🎈