The journalist Nick Cohen – in an article lamenting the fact that organisers of literary festivals expect writers to give their time free of charge – once pondered on the fact that “exposure” was offered in place of money. This was a strange word to use as bait, he thought, “when people die of exposure”.
The phrase lodged in my mind, and it came back again recently in another context, in response to the growing concern about the deteriorating mental health of children and teenagers, particularly girls. People do, of course, literally die of exposure when they are buffeted by the elements without the necessary layers to protect them. But what about the constant exposure of thoughts, life events and images?
