Device addiction…
January 6th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Enjoyed this piece by NYT’s Roger Cohen on device addiction and how conversations are perpetually disturbed by those who cannot leave their devices alone.
He says there is “Now near-universal irritation of finding conversations interrupted by a familiar glance toward the little screen, or conversations deadened by the state of near-permanent distraction from their immediate surroundings in which people live.
“Inhabiting one place — that is to be fully absorbed by and focused on one’s surroundings rather than living in some diffuse cyberlocation composed of the different strands of a device-driven existence — is a fast-dwindling ability. This in turn generates a paradox: People have never traveled as much but at the same time been less able to appreciate the difference between here and there.
“To be permanently switched on is also to switch off to what takes time to be seen. A lot of good ideas, as well as some of life’s deeper satisfactions, can get lost that way.
It’s the start of a new year, a time for resolutions. To each his own, but I know this: Nobody will ever lie on his or her deathbed and say: “I should have kept my device on longer.”
Very true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/opinion/cohen-a-time-to-tune-out.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
