Latest news with #RozChast
Daily Maverick
06-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Maverick
Tech a beat — if you're feeling overwhelmed, you have yourself – and apps
A Roz Chast cartoon, first published in The New Yorker in 2024, circulated on social media recently. It is of a man walking jauntily down a city street, hands in his pockets, whistling a happy tune with nary a care in the world. The caption reads: 'The guy who didn't know his cholesterol, BMI, his net worth, his IQ, his credit score, his astrological sign or his ancestry.' To this we could add: who didn't wear a wristwatch which recorded his heart rate, paid his bills, monitored his sleep and eating patterns, checked how far he has walked and how infrequently, and judged how often he has jerked off. It is perfectly clear that knowing your cholesterol count can prevent major illnesses further down the line, including heart disease, stroke and Alzheimer's. This is a good thing; this is progress. However, beware too much intrusive data gathering. Imagine a world where your medical insurance turns down what appears to be a valid claim. You can argue, but the data from your wrist or your cellphone could be their artificial intelligence receipts. Those emails you failed to respond to, those 'membership' health initiative apps you just didn't download and those gym membership offers ignored will all be there to justify the rejection. 'Our reasons for declining medical assistance are that we note several days of the week the client spent 24-hours watching Netflix series in a pronate position. The client/patient's heart rate was that of a bear in hibernation. This is a self-inflicted health issue.' Before apps, acknowledging you were overweight, now known as a body mass index, required you to look in the mirror. And then the fridge. And then make a plan. Or not, and happily settle into yourself. So, although blissful ignorance about one's health might be lethal, so too is an obsession with every morsel that passes from lips to toilet bowl. Data surveillance prisons If there is an epidemic of dissociation and loneliness in the world today, it might be because billions spend their 'free time' only on and by themselves – eyes growing myopic, stuck to screens while eating, sitting on buses and trains and even walking, crossing roads, cycling or ambling on city pavements. This leads to an intense inward journey that feeds straight into the data bank, contributing, in the end, to the quantum computer, soon to make its appearance like a big tech messiah. (Google it.) But in order to have any sort of relatively successful 'output' in life, you need 'input'. If millions are growing up or old scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, then we can safely say there is a lot of electronic debris floating around in human consciousness right now. Hence the attraction to 'fake news' and 'permanent outrage'. When life, reality and the world keeps coming as a surprise, this can destabilise the fragile mind. Although social media provides much comic relief as ordinary people find a platform to mock and troll the powerful and rich, the greatest driver on social media is fear, and it is mostly a fear of growing old and dying. This is why Botoxed, bleached-toothed, steroid-pumped, airhead, breast-enhanced 'influencers' thrive on the internet. The idea is to surgically alter yourself to look like an 80-year-old newborn so that death might pass you by. Taxes used to be included in the saying 'the only thing you can be sure of in life is death and taxes', but this no longer applies to the world's billionaires. However, they have forgotten that they too will all perish and die regardless of Venice nuptials. Hopefully Elon Musk will be on Mars by then, performing his act of libertarian nihilism for humankind. On and off the spectrum It is unsurprising that there has been an epidemic of diagnoses of people 'on the autism spectrum'. Sometimes it feels like the internet is owned by people claiming all manner of 'neurodivergent' conditions. Today, should you feel overwhelmed, it is not the fault of the barrage of emails and WhatsApps or invitations to meetings and group meditations, these unwanted intrusions that pop up, prompted by AI's 'health and wellness' programmes. Should you feel swamped, then you must have attention deficit disorder or you self-diagnose as an 'empath' or 'introvert'. Autistic self-diagnosis is a thing now, diminishing the challenges people with real autism face. It makes sense that when our tiny brains are bombarded with so much stimulus in our work and private lives we would be rendered neurotic, anxious wrecks prone to following conspiracy theories. All around the world (where there is no war) there are initiatives to connect without screens. The silent reading gatherings in South Africa – which are like book clubs without the wine or assigned reading – are one such example. It is a hunger for real life, outside the electronic noise. Tune out and drop off. Leave the internet some days. Go on, read a book, watch a bird. DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
Washington Post
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
10 wry, controversial, viral covers from the New Yorker's 100 years
Excited Elon at the inauguration. Ohtani and Judge as titanic sluggers. The Mona Lisa refusing visitor photographs. And always, the palpable anxiety of a Roz Chast experience. The New Yorker has defied media trends with conversation-starting covers that often go bold, go striking and go viral — even as many other national magazines have shuttered, and print covers have lost much of their cultural power.
