My Distraction Sickness
Image by Screen Shot of New York Magazine
We’re all addicted. And we’re all in trouble. That’s the blaring siren of a message from Andrew Sullivan’s New York magazine cover story from September, “My Distraction Sickness — and Yours.” The piece tells the personal story of how Sullivan unplugged from his life as a hyper-prolific blogger and spent time recovering at a silent meditation retreat in Massachusetts. But there is universal resonance when Sullivan writes that his relentlessly plugged-in online life “was actually becoming a way of not-living.” I had many memorable cultural experiences this year —Paul Kalanithi’s posthumous memoir, “When Breath Becomes Air,” A Tribe Called Quest’s comeback album “We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service,” Barry Jenkins’s gorgeous film, “Moonlight” — but Sullivan’s piece is the one that haunted me most. “Just look around you — at the people crouched over their phones as they walk the streets, or drive their cars, or walk their dogs, or play with their children,” he writes at one point. “We have gone from looking up and around to constantly looking down.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
