It’s become a bit trite to talk about the ills of social media. Hypocritical too, as such debates are often conducted within the very same arena of social media, which reminds me of the early eighties and adults telling me to steer well clear of smoking whilst lighting another superking off the one just going out.
A less remarked upon social ill is the danger of ‘listening to stuff’. Hear me out.
The last few years have been a golden age for audio entertainment: the explosion of podcasts, the popularity of audiobooks and those high production value documentaries that now ‘drop’ on BBC Sounds with all the pomp of the latest episode of Succession.
The technology to produce this sort of output has been around a while. It’s not like audiobooks had to wait for voice de-ageing software. Why only now am I inventing reasons to give the dog a fifth walk of the day so I can listen to Jon Ronson?
I put it down to one thing: The proliferation of ear-buds.
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