Every week readers of this august column get to savour a couple of YouTube tracks and a Mixcloud copy of my live radio show. This was not possible a couple of decades ago, shiiit, even the internet wasn’t around much before that. If I wanted to listen to music I either bought it or heard it on the radio at a proscribed time. Catch up, wtf ? So now we are living in a golden age aren’t we? We can access all the music we want anytime we want and most of the time not have to part with any money. In fact we can live without leaving our homes and remain utterly abreast of all things relevant to our lives without raising our heads from our devices. Surely this humanity has crested another peak of development?
Why then do I crave the sound of kids talking to each other when I’m driving them to school? Or seek out conversation in places often full of people but with everyone staring at reels or whatnot. A recent meal with people actually reached a moment when all six of us were staring at other things whilst seated with each other. Last week I watched a child in its pushchair scream until it had both a dummy and a device. The electronic babysitter is ubiquitous and children’s mental health services are not just overwhelmed, they are decimated.
Our esteemed PM is trying to push through a law banning the buying of cigarettes that could ensure that it is never legal for anyone born after 2010 to buy fags ever. Nanny state or long-term policy designed to relieve pressure on the Health Service in 30-40 years? – you decide. There are even rumblings of phone sales being restricted to the over 16s. Nanny state or a genuine attempt to stem the flow of devastating mental illness developing in our youth? – you decide. For me, increasingly, I am genuinely concerned that the younger generations are becoming so physically and mentally addicted to the dopamine hit of likes and plays that any sense of perspective or rational grounding is disappearing fast. And I haven’t even started to talk about algorithms and elections…
Got that off my chest… til next week. Been listening to the new Small Town Jones single – bloody ace as well as some classic Lambchop (remixed!) and the radio show is chock a block with new stuff – The Felice Bros, STJ, Waxahatchee etc . Dive in! As ever take what you want or need.
Oh dear. People have been scaring their contemporaries with fears about new technologies since before the advent of railways. Newspapers, radio, movies and TV were all going to corrupt the minds of gullible young people. And yet here we are.