Surely the solution is to just bury our heads in the sand and ignore everything falling apart around us until we can’t ignore it anymore.
The article is more about reading actual books and not about ignoring reality. In other words, having a deeper understanding of societal conditions and not just the shallow interpretations that filter through social media.
There’s certainly an irony in commenting on it, seemingly without first reading it 🫠
Yeah I had the same thought that the comments were proving the author’s point. To be fair, the headline is pretty shit and I thought about editoralising it (but wasn’t sure if that was allowed here).
It also says that younger generations (who presumably consume the most social media) are the biggest readers of books, and that they appear to be the most ready/keen to enact change.
Based on the data presented in the article, it’s clear that you can consume both types of media/information simultaneously without “throwing away your phone”.
That’s right, now be a good citizen and watch the 37th season of Big Celebrity Farmer Wants Marriage at First Idol Survivor Win Alone.
“Phone users have hitherto only read about the world on various sites; the point, however, is to change it.”
The state of the world is horrifying, it should horrify us, and the solution isn’t to ignore that knowledge, but to apply it. Find organisations working to improve the world and do your part. Don’t doomscroll, immobilising ourselves isn’t helpful either, so sure “put the phone down” in that sense, but (preaching to the choir here) feeling bad about the state of the world is not a problem, it’s a healthy sign.
It’s the feelings of doom and feeling not being able to do anything to positively change how we live that is harmful.
We all need reminding , me included, that we so have agency, that we can do things to change our personal lives and help change our society and environment too.
it won’t be easy and it won’t be perfect and it won’t be much but it is something
first thing is to stop thinking we can do nothing, next is see what we want done, and then stop fighting and start fining things to agree on and to work on together.
but no fighting, we need tolerance of imperfection to work together
“Just don’t look up!”
Bird gripped by feelings of doom about approaching croc. Time to bury its head in the sand.
