Ideas are in there like currants in a bun, but feelings hold it together, not analysis. Presumably that's not the intention behind the article, but the interest lies in what it doesn't say, not the feelings it attempts to convey.
How to survive the information crisis: ‘We once talked about fake news – now reality itself feels fake’
In this age of crisis, technology is pulling us apart. At its best, journalism can bring us together again, writes Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner
I have a confession to make. It has taken me years to write this article.
For a long time, I have felt that something was missing in the public conversation about human connection and community and how they are being eroded. And yet I haven’t been able to articulate it. Thinking and writing have become harder. It’s as if the neurons in my brain don’t connect with each other in quite the same way. I go to check a fact and get instantly diverted by a hundred other distractions on my phone. I find myself unable to devote time to thinking and writing like I used to.
It could be the relentless news agenda, but the news has been relentless throughout my 11 years as editor-in-chief of the Guardian. It could be age, but I’m not that old. It could be menopause, but I’m on all the drugs.
No, I think it’s because of something that many of us feel in this moment. That our attention spans have been degraded, our thinking skills blunted. That we somehow can’t concentrate or lose ourselves in a project. Finding myself stuck, as an experiment, I asked an AI tool to write this article for me, just to see what it came up with. The result was insufferably pompous and joyless. A reminder of the limits of this technology, for now at least.
In this age of crisis, technology is pulling us apart. At its best, journalism can bring us together again, writes Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner
I have a confession to make. It has taken me years to write this article.
For a long time, I have felt that something was missing in the public conversation about human connection and community and how they are being eroded. And yet I haven’t been able to articulate it. Thinking and writing have become harder. It’s as if the neurons in my brain don’t connect with each other in quite the same way. I go to check a fact and get instantly diverted by a hundred other distractions on my phone. I find myself unable to devote time to thinking and writing like I used to.
It could be the relentless news agenda, but the news has been relentless throughout my 11 years as editor-in-chief of the Guardian. It could be age, but I’m not that old. It could be menopause, but I’m on all the drugs.
No, I think it’s because of something that many of us feel in this moment. That our attention spans have been degraded, our thinking skills blunted. That we somehow can’t concentrate or lose ourselves in a project. Finding myself stuck, as an experiment, I asked an AI tool to write this article for me, just to see what it came up with. The result was insufferably pompous and joyless. A reminder of the limits of this technology, for now at least.
3 comments:
A nasty outbreak of reality at Grauniad Towers.
"It could be menopause, but I’m on all the drugs." Natch. Say no more, darlin'.
"The result was insufferably pompous and joyless." Ah, the Guardian house style.
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