{"id":534,"date":"2009-05-01T08:20:21","date_gmt":"2009-05-01T15:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickyopaterny.com\/blog\/?p=534"},"modified":"2009-05-01T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2009-05-01T16:00:11","slug":"zadie-smith-the-internet-is-an-absolute-disaster-for-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/01\/zadie-smith-the-internet-is-an-absolute-disaster-for-writers\/","title":{"rendered":"Zadie Smith: The Internet is an absolute disaster for writers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/media.dreamhost.com\/ufo.js\"><\/script>\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"zadie_350x198.flv\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\">Loading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n  var FO = { movie:\"https:\/\/media.dreamhost.com\/mediaplayer.swf\",width:\"350\",height:\"200\",majorversion:\"7\",build:\"0\",bgcolor:\"#FFFFFF\",\n             flashvars:\"file=http:\/\/rickyopaterny.com\/audio\/zadie_350x198.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false\" };\nUFO.create(FO,\"zadie_350x198.flv\");\n<\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I first met Zadie Smith in the summer of 2001 at a book signing in San Francisco. I waited in line with a friend for her to sign my first (American) edition of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0375703861?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thelitteinlit-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=0375703861\">White Teeth.<\/a><\/em> After she did, my friend, who didn&#8217;t have a book, approached her, and she signed his right arm. She also drew a dotted line around it and wrote &#8220;Cut Here.&#8221; I love her work for that very sensibility and humor.<\/p>\n<p>Last night Jonathan Safran Foer interviewed Smith at NYU. (She has a collection of essays, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0375703861?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thelitteinlit-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=1594202370\">Changing My Mind,<\/a><\/em> coming out later this year.) I&#8217;ve read several polemical essays and books written in opposition to Internet culture. And I read them because I have the sense that life used to be different ten years ago, and, in many ways, it was better. Even four years ago, I was better able to concentrate on long projects than I am able to now; in short, the current iteration of the Internet has killed productivity\u2014productivity at the things that actually matter. I think Malcolm Gladwell was right, in many ways, when he called Google <a href=\"http:\/\/rickyopaterny.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/12\/google-is-the-answer-to-the-problem-we-didnt-have\/\">&#8220;the answer to a problem we didn&#8217;t have.&#8221;<\/a> But I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve heard anyone convey the problem as powerfully as Smith does in the snippet of last night&#8217;s interview that you can watch above. She calls the Internet &#8220;an absolute disaster for writers&#8221; because she spends too much time on Facebook and Google, and she imagines a generation of children who won&#8217;t know how to concentrate because they grew up with this Internet. And what will you get when everyone grows up with the web? Rebels who reject it! It&#8217;s powerful because Smith critiques with a seriousness that is funny rather than earnest, engaging rather than alienating. &#8220;Cut here,&#8221; she seems to say, &#8220;I dare you.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Loading&#8230; I first met Zadie Smith in the summer of 2001 at a book signing in San Francisco. I waited in line with a friend for her to sign my first (American) edition of White Teeth. After she did, my friend, who didn&#8217;t have a book, approached her, and she signed his right arm. She [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1,4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gen-o.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}