The more time we spend swimming in digital waters, the shallower our cognitive capacity becomes and the less control we have of our attention.
By Tony Schwartz
It is nearly 11:30 p.m., and I'm lying in bed, way overtired. I ought to turn out the lights, but instead, my laptop is perched on my stomach.
I have just finished reading email from earlier in the day. Now, I am surfing aimlessly, reading the latest news updates about Donald Trump and Bill Cosby, looking over sales on Gilt, watching videos on YouTube and perusing LinkedIn invitations from people I don't know.
This article is, I think, an excellent illustration of the price we're all paying for "always on" and "always connected" access to the online world. It doesn't matter if the endpoint is a "laptop" or a "smartphone": what counts is the slavish devotion many users have to their online world, to the detriment of their actual lives.
I've been saying for several years that smartphones and other portable Internet-ready devices are shortchanging us of the benefits which the net is capable of delivering. We have become a nation of electronic sycophants, chained to electronic leashes which are cheapening our perceptions of the world and our ability to deal with it in a natural way.
Bill Horne Moderator