Laudator Temporis Acti recently posted on George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. He noted this passage from chapter XII:
Drugs play an important enough role in the modern lifestyle to admit their intrusion into the quotidian. The ubiquity of smartphones, however, irks me. I don't remember the last time I went to a cafe, restaurant, or movie without someone monitoring some update on a smartphone. Colleagues of mine readily claim not to have read a book since college, but checking the phone for its various updates is a religious activity. Apparently this is normal.
I wonder how suspiciously anyone looks at a drug anymore, let alone a machine; addiction to both is commonplace.The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug—that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes. You have only to look about you at this moment to realize with what sinister speed the machine is getting us into its power.
Drugs play an important enough role in the modern lifestyle to admit their intrusion into the quotidian. The ubiquity of smartphones, however, irks me. I don't remember the last time I went to a cafe, restaurant, or movie without someone monitoring some update on a smartphone. Colleagues of mine readily claim not to have read a book since college, but checking the phone for its various updates is a religious activity. Apparently this is normal.
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