Politics is struggling to cope with the pace of technological change – and that is affecting every single one of us
R
eturning from holiday, asked where I have been, I want to say “offline”. The more precise answer is France, where the internet is available. But I tried not to use it compulsively because there isn’t much point in getting away from it all if you carry it all with you on a phone and check it every few minutes.
At some point in the past decade or so, the condition of vacation came to be defined more by detachment from the digital realm than departure from home. The break begins not in a departure lounge but with the act of logging off, setting the out-of-office email auto-reply, archiving work-related WhatsApp chats, deleting social media apps.
The benefit isn’t immediate. The cacophony rings in your ears for a few days before you notice the stillness, the change in tempo. It is the difference between gliding on thermal currents of private thought and hurtling along rails, propelled by the burning urgency of other people’s opinions. The contrast is even starker in reverse, the roar of the tunnel as you go back to work, the jostle of notifications, the bowed head, scrolling the horizon away.
