What Is Noise?

The irony is that the atomized buzz common to so much late-twentieth-century technology—fax machines, dial-up modems, the hiss between stations on a radio dial, the “Poltergeist” snow of a TV left on overnight—has largely faded. Such noise now resides in our minds, as we fend off notifications, updates, “Just for You” suggestions, consumer-feedback requests, obscene spam, clickbait headlines, A.I.-generated news stories, A.I.-generated news stories about A.I., and the whole silently screaming rest of it.