Paul Weller: 'Facebook is a distraction'

Paul Weller has voiced his opposition to social networking sites such as Facebook, saying that they are the "opium of the masses".

The singer and former frontman of The Jam told NME that he does think that technology is important, but finds some of its applications to be worse than others.

Weller told NME: "I do think that technology is good for certain things, but I do also think that the arse-end of that is there's just a lot of time wasted, staring at a screen, talking to cyber friends. And I don't get that, really.

"I think it's a way of distracting people from what's really happening. I do think there's an element of that. I think it's the new opium of the masses, personally.

"All the things that I don't like about that... I would have thought that would be enough for any new generation to kick against."