“Algorithms and artificial intelligence are the opposite of taking risks and to me that is the opposite of making art.”
The 67-year-old singer – who is mother to Lourdes, 29, Rocco, 25, David, 20, Mercy, also 20, and 13-year-old twins Stella and Estere – likes to “disappear” from social media and the online world when she is working on new music in order to “fuel her imagination” and let inspiration come from real life.
Madonna believes there’s too much focus on online followings over artistic work. Photo / Getty Images
She said: “Lately it’s been hard because of my record and so many things connected to it. But I do like to take breaks … and disappear. Because that’s how you fuel your imagination.
“You have to have stillness and you have to have days where you’re just connecting to nature, my children, my horses.”
Madonna recently branded Instagram – on which she has more than 20 million followers – “soul-destroying and mesmerising” and admitted spending too much time on the app makes her depressed.
She told Interview magazine: “We think if we look at Instagram for two hours, we’ve actually been with somebody. It’s a deeply disturbing activity.
“It’s mesmerising and also soul-destroying.”
Asked if she doomscrolls, she said: “Occasionally I open Instagram and something pops up that makes me go to the next visual. And then I go, ‘What am I doing? I have 5,000 things to do. Get off the phone.’
“I have a lot of discipline when it comes to social media, simply because I grew up without it.
“I didn’t have Instagram until 2018 or something. I grew up without TV. I’m not a person who gravitates toward distraction.
“Oh my god, I make lists every night, put Post-its everywhere, and then my day is filled with sometimes boring but also very exciting activities.
“And I do see, if I go on Instagram for more than 10 minutes, I get depressed, and I don’t want to go there.
“Why am I giving this nonexistent entity power over my soul, my brain, my vision of myself, my vision of the world? Time is precious, and that’s something I’ve known all my life. Time’s precious. What can I get done? What can I do?”