Adam Gopnik: “Why I don’t tweet”

Adam Gopnik, who writes for the New Yorker, has only ever sent nine tweets. In this long BBC article he explains why:

” Everyone insists that the technological transformation of the daily shape of our lives by new gadgets is enormous, while allowing that their emotional effect is more dubious, leaving us with emptier, or at best, unaltered souls. I think the truth is closer to the direct reverse. The emotional effect of new devices is overwhelming – they are like having new pets, new children, trailing with them an overwhelming attachment. But the transformational effect they have on our lives is actually, looked at squarely and without sentiment, quite minimal. After the introduction of a new device, or social media, our lives are exactly where they were before, save for the new thing or service, which we now cannot live without.”

And note this sentence:

“Like so much modern media technology, [the smartphone] creates a dependency without ever actually addressing a need.”