Blog: The digital backlash continues

British painter David Hockney blames the iPod for people not being interested in fine art. Photo / Reuters

First Andrew Keen wrote off the progress that has been made with the internet in his book Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture.

Now his countryman, the British painter David Hockney has blamed the iPod for a decline in "visual awareness" among people, which is contributing to a modern disinterest in fine art.

As Hockney says:"I think it's all about sound. People plug in their ears and don't look much, whereas for me my eyes are the biggest pleasure.

"You notice that on buses. People don't look out of the window; they are plugged in and listening to something.

"I think we are not in a very visual age and it's producing badly dressed people. They have no interest in mass or line or things like that."

Are the iPod and the Web 2.0 eroding culture or are Keen and Hockney just cranky old men who can't relate to the multimedia-obsessed, user-generated, mashed-up digital world we now live in?

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